


Heart of the Sea

by storiesbeyondthestars



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: I planned this during mermay so it totally counts, M/M, Mer AU, Not Beta Read, also a little bit of soulmate au, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-18 10:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 48,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14850707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesbeyondthestars/pseuds/storiesbeyondthestars
Summary: There is an old story about the Heart of the Sea, an object that grants its holder control over the oceans. Lance, a curious mer who wanted to explore the oceans beyond his home, knew the myth like everyone else did. It was just a story though, an old fish-tale, wasn't it?





	1. Prologue

A long time ago, before the first books were written and when man was still divided across the world, not knowing more than their own existence, there were Gods. Gods of the sun, moon, stars, grass, trees, volcanos, dirt, music, laughter, friendship, love, childbirth, marriage and so much more. None were more powerful than the Gods of the Sky, Earth, and Sea though.

The people that lived and walked on the earth belonged to the God of the Earth, though they worshipped the God of the Sky. It was a strange relationship, all things considered, and not one that the people of the sea understood.

The God of the Sea became jealous of the God of the Sky, and how they were worshipped by those from all over. The two Gods went to war, devastating the sea and the land. The God of the Earth begged them to stop, but only the God of the Sky was willing to listen, the God of the Sea was not. Together, the Gods of the Sky and Earth defeated the God of the Sea. Together, they crafted an object to keep the Sea God’s power for themselves.

Unfortunately, the oceans began to suffer, and the people of the sea begged the Sky God to return the power back so that they may live. They were not a cruel God, and agreed, but with a condition. The object, known by the sea people as the Heart of the Sea, was placed in the sacred temple of Oriande, where the people of the sea protected it for generations.

Then came the witch.

She didn’t start as a witch. She started as a bright, curious young mer that wanted to know about her history and the ocean. She became curious about the Heart’s power, but as the story goes, she became consumed by it. She craved its power more and more, and tried to take it for her own, murdering those who the gods favoured to protect it. Her greatest mistake was leaving two alive.

The two were young and in love, and her last bits of sympathy went out to them.

Together, the two stole back the heart. One gave their life to seal away the Heart and protect it, destroying Oriande and banishing the witch from the seas until one day when she would be welcomed back.

The lone survivor of Oriande, mourning the loss of their love, would carry the story forward, so that all would know of it.

The Heart of the Sea was never seen again.


	2. Of Fins and Feet

Sunlight shone down through the shallow water, refracting and dancing across the muddy sea floor, across the shells, pebbles, rocks and seaweed that swayed with the gentle roll of the waves.

“Hmm,” a voice rang out through the water. A mer with a long, vibrant blue tail that seemed to shine with hues of turquois and green in the sunlight looked around thoughtfully, twisting end-on-end. The scales faded into rough, light brown skin at his torso, dots of blue along his back, shoulders, and arms. His dark blue eyes scanned the area in front of him thoughtfully. “Where are Gavin and Aleja?”

He heard the distinct sound of giggling coming from behind a nearby boulder, catching a flash of bright pink out of the corner of his eye.

He continued to meander around the area. “Where did they go? Hmm. Oh! I bet they’re…here!” He looked around another rock, knowing that they were watching him. He heard more giggles and a shush, no doubt Gavin trying to silence his younger sister.

He continued to look around before dramatically sprawling on the ocean floor. “Oh no, where are Gavin and Aleja? I’ve lost them. They’re gone forever and it’s all my fault.” He pretended to cry.

There was a flurry of bubbles and a sudden weight on him. “No, Uncle Lance. Don’t cry! We’re here!”

“There you are!” Lance cried out with amplified happiness, swinging his niece up and around. He glanced around, frowning a bit when he saw that his nephew was nowhere in sight. “Where’d your brother go?” He would normally pounce on him with her.

“He followed a dolphin that way!” She pointed out towards the open ocean, away from the shallow waters.

Lance groaned and said, “Hop on.” She eagerly squirmed onto his back, holding onto his shoulders as he shot off. Aleja laughed happily as they went faster than she could go, faster than others around her normally went.

They easily caught up to another small mer, this one with a bright turquoise tail. Lance swung around in front of him and crossed his arms in front of him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Gavin blinked up at him innocent and said, “Hi Uncle Lance.”

“Yes, hi. Where are you off to?”

“I thought we could play tag?” the little mer asked more than explained.

“So you left without letting anyone know?”

Gavin pouted a bit and flopped back with dramatics that could rival his uncle. It was a family thing. “I wanted to go to the Drop-Off.”

Lance frowned at that. “You know we’re not allowed to do that.”

“But why?”

“It’s the rules. Mers don’t leave Arus.”

“But why?” Gavin insisted.

“Because it’s the law.”

“But why?”

Lance groaned and shook his head, not wanting to go into this. He ran his fingers through his dark brown hair and glared at them. “Come on, let’s get going. Your mom wanted you home for lunch.”

“But why?” Both of the children asked together.

He puffed his cheeks up, grabbing a little mer in each arm, and taking off back towards the city.

Arus was a large, underwater city where the mers lived, just off of the cost of the human Kingdom of Altea. Arus was deep enough to be out of the way of any ships that drifted overhead, but still close enough to the surface to be filtered with sunlight. It was a beautiful city with homes made from carved stones and coral that some mers grew.

The humans were always fascinated by their city when they came down in their suits, their submersible machines, and submarines. Though the mers of Arus and the humans of Altea got along with one another very well, the mers still kept their secrets. If the humans wouldn’t share more about them, why would the mers share their world entirely?

Lance loved his home. All families stayed close together, generations commonly living together, their homes tunneling down into the ground deeper and deeper if they needed to fit more people.

It was why he didn’t bother announcing his arrival when he brought his niece and nephew back home. They both happily swam towards their mother, spinning around her in circles as they excitedly spoke of their day.

“It sounds like you had a lot of fun,” Veronica said with a wide smile, blue eyes turning towards her younger brother. “Were they good?”

“We were,” Gavin promised her.

“Gavin tried to swim away,” Aleja corrected, causing her brother to glare at her and smack her with his tail. She cried out, and then sank her sharp teeth into his arm.

Lance watched, staying away as Veronica wrangled her children. Both the tail whip and the bite had to hurt. The thing about their family was that, even though their scales came in a wide variety of colours, their build was often compared to sharks. Strong, powerful, with sharper teeth than average, and wicked hunters.  It made a few other mers a little wary of them, but whatever.

“Enough!” Veronica yelled, and her children fell silent, staring at her with wide eyes. She huffed and looked up at Lance. “Where did he try to go?”

“The Drop-Off.”

She hissed a bit, and glared at both of her children. They seemed to sink down more at that. “You are not allowed near the Drop-Off until you’re older, and even then, you’re not allowed to go beyond that. You know this. It’s to keep everyone safe. Arus and Altea are safe. Out there is not. The ocean is large, and dangerous. You need to stay here to be _safe_.”

Lance knew the stories. There used to be other underwater cities where mers thrived, but humans had either slaughtered them, or polluted the waters so badly that they died from the poison. From what they knew, there were no other mers anymore. They were all gone.

 It was why many humans flocked to Altea, to get a glimpse of the last mers.

It made Lance sad to think about. He loved the stories of the past that spoke of travel and adventure, of exploring the ocean and pods of mers that never stayed in one place. Now it was all gone. They stayed in Arus to keep themselves safe.

The humans of Altea were wonderful people, and easily identifiable by the markings by their eyes. Sometimes they brought other humans with them, but they were generally okay too. The Alteans didn’t pollute the environment and worked hard to help the mers keep at least their pocket of ocean clean. They never fished like other humans. Instead, they established trade with the mers, goods from the sea for goods from the land. It was only fair.

Lance understood why they had to stay in Arus. Why it wasn’t safe to go anywhere else. That didn’t mean he liked it though. He wanted to travel and explore. He wanted to see the world. He understood Gavin’s curiosity far too much.

Some days he would go to the Drop-Off and sit there, staring at the dark ocean below. He was tempted to let himself sink, to see what was just below the Drop-Off. He didn’t have to worry about the pressure hurting him like anything from the surface did. Mers were special that way. They could adapt to any natural pressures, temperatures, and salinity. It’s was the unnatural stuff that humans added in that got them.

Sometimes Lance wants to just go. It wasn’t like anyone at home would miss him for long. Mers lived a long time, and eventually his family would forget about him. Forget about the mer in the family who didn’t have a fated mate, and would never have a family.

That thought made Lance’s shoulders drop slightly. He sighed and looked towards the top of the ocean. He didn’t want to be surrounded by water right now.

His eyes lit up as a large ship passed overhead. Bidding his sister goodbye, he rushed off, rising towards the surface and heading after the ship, pretty sure that he knew which one it was. After all, he only knew a single ship with that many colours on it.

…

Shiro had always loved travelling. He didn’t care of the method, he always just like moving. When he was younger, he had dreamt of exploring the stars, seeing things that people had never seen before and stepping into new worlds.

Unfortunately, some people didn’t have the resources to chase those dreams. Instead, Shiro went to work with his father on a fishing boat. It wasn’t at all glorious, but fishing certainly could be death-defying and dangerous.

Except, sometimes it wasn’t death-defying at all. Sometimes it ended up in insurmountable losses.

They don’t let amputees go into space, or be pilots at all. That dream was entirely lost along with his arm, father, and the rest of the crew. The fact that he survived at all was a miracle at all, one that his sweet mother praised over and over again. She claimed that it was because she prayed to the Gods, that she reached out to those who were powerful in magic, but Shiro was skeptical.

Not of magic. No, it was painfully obvious that magic itself existed, but he didn’t think that his survival was a miracle. It didn’t feel like it.

It felt like hands grapping a hold of his good arm, dragging him through the water as he lost his last breath. It was sore ribs that were broken when trying to make him breathe again. It was the strange way his arm stitched itself together so he couldn’t lose blood before he even woke up.

Yes, magic existed, and maybe magic had a hand in his survival, but it had nothing to do with his mother’s pursuits.

Shiro learned of Altea when he was very young. It was a strange, island kingdom that was both advanced and in-tune with nature. It was ruled by a royal family, which was odd in that day and age, but who was Shiro to judge? That wasn’t why he knew about Altea anyway.

What he was curious about were the mers that lived nearby. He couldn’t forget the feeling of hands dragging him up from the depths during the storm that had killed everyone else on the ship.

He had wanted to come to Altea, but in the end, it was a very strange series of events that actually brought him there.

While looking into basic arm prosthetics, he had been approached by people that were doing a study with advanced robotic limbs. Apparently they had teams of people scouring the globe for the best candidates, and Shiro fit into the parameters they set out. He was young, strong, and in good health. It also helped him that his family had low income, because this was a trial and he didn’t have to pay for it, so they were looking for people it would genuinely help.

Of course, the biggest condition was that he go to Altea where the research would be done. With her extended family there, his mother insisted that he go. It was where he _wanted_ to go in the first place, and in retrospect, maybe him constantly searching Altea had drawn attention to him (he wouldn’t put it by any government to be spying on everyone else). It was sketchy, but there was really no down side for him.

At first, he had been regarded rather suspiciously be the Altean people, and it was obvious that he wasn’t one of them. He didn’t have the distinct markings by his eyes, which weren’t nearly as round and wide as the Alteans. They also had such unique colouring to their hair and eyes that it was beautiful and almost otherworldly.

Some people whispered that the ancestors of the Alteans came from the sea themselves, hence why they were so colourful like the mers, and why they seemed to have a stronger connection to magic than most people. Shiro didn’t know if that was true, but it was interesting to think about.

Shiro shook his head slightly, trying to focus. When he first got there, the suspicious eyes on him wasn’t due to the fact that Altea was an isolated country, they were just protective of their closest neighbours and for good reason. Environmental laws were strict there, as were boating laws, and fishing was outlawed all together. It was all to help their mer neighbours, the last of their kind.

Shiro himself wasn’t so sure about that though.

He was fascinated, like most people, with the mers in the sea. Eager to get a glimpse of one, he had gone down onto the beach his first week there, walking across one of the piers that jutted out into the water.

A flash of silver hair had caught his attention, but instead of a mer, it was one of the most beautiful women that he had ever seen. He had been so distracted, that he ended up slipping on the wet dock, not only falling into the water himself, but taking the woman with him.

Shiro had been awestruck by her dark skin, silver hair, and bright blue eyes. Then he had been horrified by the fact that it turned out that she was the _Princess_. He had accidentally thrown the Princess into the ocean because he was checking her out. That was Shiro’s life.

Of course, there had been others with her. Instead of worrying though, they had all laughed at the incident. One young man with caramel brown hair leaned down to him and said, “Here, let me give you a hand.”

“Thanks, I could use one,” Shiro said, casting a glance at the spot where his right arm was supposed to have been.

The man, who he later found out went by the name Matt Holt, looked horrified at what had happened. His sister, Pidge, and their friend, Hunk, had thought it was hilarious though.

These people, Princess Allura included, ended up almost adopting him into their group. Especially since he proved to be more than just a good captain. He had no problem steering ships and manning underwater vehicles, which was exactly what the group needed apparently. He was even paid to captain the Princess’ personal ship, simply known as Voltron. It was a relief to him that he could start sending some money back to his mother.

That was how he ended up regularly sailing the seas with a beautiful princess and her crew. Of course, what they were doing on the seas was also incredibly interesting. So while he spent days having his new prosthetic arm poked and prodded at, pictures and videos taken of it in action, he tended to spend even more time on the water. That was fine, of course, since he was testing one of their water-safe models (people were worried about the weight of these advanced prosthetics and their functionality in water).

It surprised Shiro a bit that Allura, as the heir to the throne, was allowed to venture out into the ocean as much as she did, though it did make sense in the long run. She was an incredibly curious woman that wanted to know everything she could about her mer neighbours. She had pulled together a crew to research them, but only with the cooperation with the mers, of course.

There was Coran, the eldest on the ship and her advisor sent by her father. Coran was so knowledgeable about nearly everything that it stunned Shiro at first. He was also very good to have around as a medic. His most noticeable feature wasn’t even the blue markings under his eyes, but rather his impressive orange moustache.

Hunk was a tall young man with dark skin and kind eyes. He was easily the strongest of them all (including Shiro), and often helped out on the boat itself as a sort of second mate. He was there to be Allura’s engineer though, to keep up the ship and to create all of the submersives that she could possibly want. He also acted as their chef when they were out at sea for more than a day.

Pidge was their programmer, and a bit of a researcher on top of it. If something existed online, she could find it. Shiro was pretty sure that she had hauled up some classified government documents before, but decided not to question it. No one did. She worked closely with Hunk, helping to program the machines to work properly.

Her brother, Matt, was no slouch with programming either, but his focus was largely on biology. He was helping Allura study the physicality of mers, along with everything else.

That left Shiro as the captain of the boat for their little crew.

Shiro had wondered how this could possibly be funded, and was a bit embarrassed by the logical answer. This wasn’t just Allura being a curious rich girl. She was actually doing this research with funding from the Altean University, where she had impressively doubled up on the mandatory politics for someone of her status, as well as marine biology.

Of course, there was one more, unofficial member of their crew. One that showed up from time to time to help them out when it struck his fancy, which was often enough, luckily for them.

He turned his attention towards the new, listening in as Allura finished the story she was sharing with them. “…And so the power destroyed Oriande, sealing the heart of the sea with it, and humans and mers rarely shared the world again.”

There was light dancing in her hands, twisting into stick figures to help her share the story. Her mastery over magic had always amazed him.

With her laptop out in front of her, Pidge cocked one of her eyebrows and regarded the princess skeptically. “So you’re telling me there’s some random thing in the ocean that controls the ocean that was lost in a human-mermaid war?”

“No,” Hunk answered before Allura could. “She’s saying that there’s a random thing in a destroyed city in the ocean that controls the ocean.”

“Thank you for the correction,” she replied sarcastically.

“Prince Lotor has done a large amount of research into this,” Allura said while clasping her hands together. “His mother as well. I trust that they know what they’re talking about.”

Shiro tried to hide his frown. He wasn’t exactly a fan of Lotor. When he voiced this to Matt, the other man had simply rolled his eyes and said it was because he was engaged to Allura (it was an arranged engagement) and Shiro was jealous. He denied this over and over, and kept his thoughts to himself.

There was just something about Lotor that unsettled him.

“Your…whatever he’s supposed to be sucks at research then.”

They all jumped, looking towards the back of the ship. Voltron, as it was called, was highly advanced, and had the ability to transform the back into almost a seating area of stairs that went into the ocean. At first, Shiro didn’t get why, but after seeing how many times that the others had gone on dives, and how often Lance climbed up onto the boat, he eventually understood.

They all jumped, looking over to where a ladder went down into the ocean. Lance was leaning on the edge of the deck, eyeing them all with interest.

“Hey buddy!” Hunk said happily, moving over and giving him a hand so that he was sitting on the ship instead of just holding on by his elbows. “How’s it going?”

“Pretty good. I got to play with my niece and nephew earlier,” he replied with a small shrug.

“My ‘whatever he’s supposed to be’?” Allura asked, eyeing Lance curiously.

“The annoying one? With the long hair? The one that your parents want to be your mate?” The look of distaste on the mer’s face was actually funny. Despite the fact that they were different species, Shiro found that Lance kind of reminded him of a younger version of himself.

“Allura’s betrothed,” Coran told Lance as he strod forward. “Fiancé.”

Lance made yet another face, one that Allura actually mirrored herself. She wasn’t exactly excited about being _forced_ to marry someone else. It was positively unheard of in that day and age. She’d do what she needed to for Altea though.

Matt scooted closer to Lance, eyeing him with interest as he always did. “So if boyfriends, girlfriends, or fiancés or whatever don’t exist, how do mers know who their partner is?”

What was known about mers was spotty at best, even for the Alteans that knew more than most. One thing that no one knew about was how they paired off, or the process of having children. They knew that mers seemed to have permanent partners, and they had heard the term ‘mate’ before, but that was about it.

The great thing about Lance was, though he did keep some things close to the chest, if you got him talking, he tended to just babble before trying to stop himself and backtrack. Matt was known for taking advantage of this.

Lance snorted. “Of course not. You’re all ridiculous with this whole…testing mates thing. Stupid. Mating is a scared thing between fated mates and is the business of no one else. And why would we want to put carrying mers at risk by curious people?”

Matt sat up, ramrod straight. His eyes danced with excitement as he made notes. “Carrying mers? So that means you give live birth like dolphins and whales? Well, of course that makes sense, since you’re mammals like us, but I suppose there’s magic to factor in the fact that you can survive so far down in the water with skeletal structures that seem similar to ours. You’ve been very helpful by giving us samples of your blood, hair, and scales, but that tells us basically nothing about how you’re born outside of genetics. You mentioned ‘fated mates’ what’s that?”

“Matt,” Shiro called out to him, coming down from the wheel after stopping the engine. “You’re going to scare him off, knock it off. Again.” Shiro had to admit, he was rather curious about all of those things too.

Unfortunately for them, Lance had already clammed up, apparently deciding that he had said far too much.

Catching onto this, Hunk jumped into action, smiling brightly as he said, “Anyway, I’ve got these awesome new pastries that I want you to try!”

Lance’s eyes lit up. “I would sell you my brother for your cooking.”

Hunk roared with laughter as he hurried to get the food in question. As he did, Allura inched closer, eyeing the mer with obvious interest. “Lotor’s story isn’t the same one you grew up hearing?” It was obvious that she was incredibly curious, but was trying not to seem like she was prying.

Luckily, this was a topic Lance had no problem talking about. “Well, I mean, I only heard a bit of what you were saying. The story I heard growing up was similar – there is this thing called the Heart of the Ocean that can control all the seas and everything in it, or something like that. There was a mer that turned into an evil witch and tried to take it, killing everyone in Oriande in the process. There were only two survivors: one that sacrificed themselves, destroying the whole city and banishing the witch from the sea, and the other to live on and tell the story.” He shrugged. “No humans in it at all. You guys really like adding yourselves into stories, don’t you?”

“Fascinating,” Allura breathed out.

“Hmm, I wonder if, perhaps, this Oriande actually exists?” Coran wondered aloud, causing the princess to perk up with interest. “Perhaps just in ruins or something. Myths usually do have a basis in reality – a story created to explain something real.”

While Lance was talking, Hunk had returned and offered one of the pastries. The mer looked positively enthralled with the dessert, barely listening to the others.

His dark blue eyes turned to Hunk, and he said, “These are amazing! Hunk food is so good!”

“You mean human food?” Matt corrected.

Lance stared at him dryly. “No. I mean Hunk food. Hunk does everything right. Even the sweet things. I don’t know how he does it. Everything else humans make isn’t salty enough.” They had once tried to get him to eat cooked meat before, and he had been disgusted, yet he would eat pretty much anything that Hunk made with gusto.

“Also, Oriande is just a story.” The mer stretched his arms out above him, long, powerful tail moving slightly, light glinting off of his shining scales. “Everyone knows that.”

“But, it could be real,” Pidge pointed out.

“Uh, no?”

“But how would you really know?” She pushed her glasses up. “You’ve never left Arus before. Mers just…don’t go beyond the Drop-Off. Anything could be out there!”

Lance frowned at that. “I—I just know, okay?” His fins all shifted, gills flaring slightly. “And I could leave if I wanted to!”

“Sure, sure,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. Pidge wasn’t wrong to be skeptical. One thing that mers made very clear over the generations was that they did not go beyond the Drop-Off, ever. If someone did, they were never seen again, presumed dead. It was curious really.

Lance glared at her fiercely before shifting, pushing himself off of platform he was on and sliding back into the water. They all watched the bubbles rise up where he had vanished, but a small wake told them that he had swam off.

“Good job, Pidge,” Hunk said to her dryly.

“And he was finally talking,” Matt said, sounding very disappointed that he didn’t get any new knowledge on mer mating practices.

Shiro sighed and placed a hand on Pidge’s shoulder, catching the guilty look in her eyes. “It’s alright. He’ll be back later. Come on, let’s get going again. We wanted to run a few more tests on the new sonar systems you guys made.”

That seemed to put everyone back into good spirits, and they all set out to do what they had to do so that everything was up and running properly.

As they drifted away, Shiro glanced back at where Lance had disappeared, a frown appearing on his face. He hoped what Pidge said didn’t bother him too much, or worse, make that horribly competitive side kick in.

There must have been a good reason that generations of mers would create laws against going beyond the Drop-Off. He eyes turned back to the open ocean, and a subtle shiver went up Shiro’s back.

He didn’t want to think about what could be out there, lurking deep in the ocean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, I meant to post this last night too with the prologue so that you could have the actual characters, but internet troubles. Secondly, I know I said this last time, but I really mean it this time, don't expect updates as quickly. I'm struggling a bit more to bang out some of the details in this, but I wanted to start posting it before S6 aired and I got inspiration for other things.
> 
> Speaking of S6, I'm about to go on a little rant related to the trailer but most about reactions to the trailer. Please ignore this if you want!
> 
> The fandom on tumblr is ridiculous. So many people are flipping their shit about one little scene with Lance and Keith where Keith clearly as a goal in mind and doesn’t have time for anything. Like his face when it pans up to him? Boy is clearly troubled by something, and he’s looking at one of the other Paladins. Since Lotor’s not there I’m betting ANYTHING that it’s Shiro he’s heading for. 
> 
> I think Keith knows something. That’s not a friendly stare. He looks like he’s going to rip a bitch. So many people mad at him for shrugging Lance off. I can’t blame him. Sometimes people can be mean to friends without meaning to. It doesn’t mean the character development is gone, I mean Lance is clearly excited to see Keith and is put off but it’s not the end of the world. Please chill and stop assuming that any specific Klance interactions, if there are any, are going to be obvious. It’s not the main point of the show at all. If it’s there, it’s going to be much more subtle and a side part to Lance’s part of the main story. 
> 
> I also think Lance’s ‘how do we know you’re the REAL Keith’ doesn’t mean they know about the clone Shiro, I think it’s mean to be ironic like ‘I’m the real Keith, but you’re sure as not the real Shiro where’s my real brother’. 
> 
> I really want to like, sit the teenage/older fanbase down (at least on tumblr since here seems pretty chill) and talk about how story telling and character arcs really work and how not to judge something based on one single scene. 
> 
> Okay I'm done. Still excited for S6 though!


	3. A Different Kind Of Mer

The sea absolutely came alive at night in a way that it didn’t during the day. Lance almost pitied humans that they couldn’t see it the way he did. They had bad eyes that couldn’t see far in all the sediment and the minimal light.

Lance fidgeted a bit against the rock he was sitting on, looking down at the open ocean below him. The moon above was bright and lit the top layers of the ocean, but farther down was pitch black. His eyes were made to be able to see with minimal light, but even he couldn’t see farther down without something to help him. They had ways to light up dark places that didn’t involve fire or electricity like humans used, but they rarely ever needed it.

Curiosity struck through Lance as he stared out at the ocean. He had always wanted to explore, to get away from the confines of Arus.

The thought that they were the only mers still out there was a sad one. Surely there were more, even if they were hiding somewhere else? Maybe they _were_ deep down in the ocean, hiding from humans, scared to leave their home too. The only way to change that would be for _someone_ to take the brave step forward to explore.

Lance had always wanted to do that. He wanted to know more about what was in the oceans, though he knew there was a lot of danger there.

His eyes looked down at his tail. Though he and all of his siblings had various shades of blue and green tails, Lance had always been a bit jealous of everyone else. Though the humans cooed over the way his scales shined in the sun, below the waters, he was plain and boring in his minds. A boring blue and built like a shark without any beautiful frills, fins, or cool spines. His teeth and claws were sharper than most, and he was wicked fast, but that wasn’t cool.

He traced his fingers over his scales, shoulders slumping slightly. Wanting to leave his home wasn’t just about exploring, it was about him too. He didn’t particularly belong anywhere. He had wicked eyesight and would have probably been an awesome guard, but the head guard, Iverson, seemed to have something against him and he didn’t make the cut. That left him as a failure and he didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

He was a loser. A loser that would never have a mate.

Everyone knew the story. When you met your fated mate, you just _knew_ that they were the one for you. It was never wrong. Humans did the whole ‘dating’ thing, and that was completely bizarre to Lance, as was the concept of being forced to marry someone else because you were told. It was insane. Wouldn’t that make the people unhappy? Humans were weird. Mers were the ones that were smart about it. They found their fated mate, and that was it. Sure, no one expected them to instantly produce offspring or anything, most just started as friends and acquaintances, turning into best friends, and then lovers. Mers mated for life and were incredibly loyal, never wavering from their mate’s side.

Fated mates made the strongest, healthiest offspring, not that anyone in Arus had guppies with anyone but their mate, not recently, at least. There were stories and rumours about some from before, and their children had all died from sickness. Maybe they were just stories, Lance didn’t know.

What he did know was that he didn’t have a fated mate. He would have met them by now. The only conclusion that he could come to was that they weren’t in Arus.

At first, he got the wild notion that maybe it was a human. It was partially what propelled him to the surface and allowed him to meet his friends. Then the logical conclusion came to him: his fated mate was, in fact, a mer, but they lived somewhere else. Maybe all the people that ended up without a mate belonged with someone from another part of the ocean.

Lance doubted that he was the first to think that. Many mers had gone beyond the Drop-Off, only to never return. It was always whispered to be a death sentence, and those mers were used as an example of why you should never go.

But what if that wasn’t what happened? What if they actually found their mates and just never came back? What if they were still exploring? Yes, there were dangerous things out there like sharks, poisonous jellyfish, and squids to name a couple things, but he could out-think all of them, and his boring tail would blend in with the ocean perfectly.

Pidge’s words echoed through his mind and he bit his lip. He wanted to go explore so badly. His family didn’t technically _need_ him right now. His mate might be out there.

The light started to dim, and Lance looked up towards the top of the ocean. The light from the moon was fading, and even from here he could tell that the waves were getting choppier. There was a storm coming, and while that didn’t generally impact them under water, they tended to buckle down in case it was a bad one and debris came raining down on them.

No one would notice if Lance left now.

He gripped the spear that he had brought with him, strapping it to his back with firmly braided seaweed knots. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he swam off the edge. For a moment, he simply moved forward blindly, before opening his eyes and looking around.

There was absolutely nothing. No giant monster rose up from the depths to instantly kill him. He wasn’t struck down by some supernatural force.

Encouraged, Lance pressed onward, excitement welling up within him.

He was going to find his mate if it was the last thing he ever did.

…

They were told again and again that the ocean beyond the Drop-Off was far too dangerous, that it was a certain death sentence if they left Arus. They wouldn’t survive even an hour.

Lance had been prepared for that. He had been prepared to swim faster than ever, to use his shark-like abilities to his advantage, to fight for his life.

So the fact that he steadily swam without any issues at all was rather boring. Oh, he had seen lots of different animals, the ocean was always teeming with life, he had even seen a few sharks and whales, but nothing that seemed particularly interested in him at the moment.

Mers were apex predators, and only the biggest things tended to bother them, but he was promised many of those things, only to find none.

Not that Lance wanted to be attacked or anything, it was just kind of a letdown in the fact that clearly no one on Arus knew what they were talking about.

Lance wasn’t sure how long he had been swimming. He was rather died, and hadn’t taken that into account when he left. He could go down a little farther and still see, there were probably places that he could sleep (as long as he didn’t accidentally go into the nest of another creature), but he was also still a bit wired. He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and Arus as he could. He had been swimming for hours though.

There was no telling if it was getting close to daylight, because of the storm that raged above him. Lance was far enough down that he wasn’t bothered by the waves and currents, but he knew it was happening.

So lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t seen a dark shape steadily dropping down towards him until he almost ran into it. Lance flinched and stared as it vanished into the darkness below, completely confused.

That looked like an anchor from a ship, though they weren’t supposed to be detached.

Looking towards the surface, Lance moved out of the way just in time as a large cage fell by him. 

At first squinting, Lance gasped when he realized that there was a ship above him. It was getting pummeled by the waves above, losing things that weren’t secured properly (Shiro had explained to him how important that was).

Were the _people_ on that ship okay? Just because the sharks left him alone didn’t mean that they were going to be docile if blood got flowing in the water. Hell, that tended to send him into a little bit of a frenzy too, and he didn’t want to end up biting someone.

(He had accidentally done it when he was little by accident and god, humans tasted gross.)

Swimming upwards, Lance braced himself to feel the rage of the ocean’s surface. Unlike humans, he didn’t have to worry about drowning. That didn’t mean he couldn’t get hurt or sick though.

He surfaced, looking around as lightning flashed overhead. He swam closer to the ship, wanting to see what was happening and if anyone was hurt.

He caught the word ‘Sincline’ on the ship, and wondered how humans came up with weird names like Sincline and Voltron.

There was some yelling from up on the deck, and the next thing Lance knew, he was surrounded by a massive net. He hissed angrily as he was pulled from the water, twisting and thrashing in it. He knew what this was. They often used nets in hunting and to bring fish to trade with the Alteans. Humans weren’t supposed to be using these though.

“We got him!” A voice yelled, prompting Lance to thrash more. “He’s not coming easy though.”

A hand came towards him, and Lance lashed out with his fin. He hit a human away, causing them to yelp and fall down. Hopefully he broke a bone or left a cut, his fins could be sharp if he used them with enough force.

Another, bigger human grabbed at him, trying to yank him up onto the deck of the boat. Lance twisted around, his hands grasping onto his spear before he stabbed back at the big human, hitting his arm.

The human howled in pain and anger, grabbing the spear with his good hand, and yanking it from Lance. The mer cried out in pain as his own spear slashed at his side, an angry, red welt going down the side of his fin.

He didn’t know who these humans were, but he knew that they were bad. He had heard of bad humans from the Alteans before, how there weren’t nice people out there, but he had never met them before.

They were going to take him. They were going to put him in one of those zoo things he was told about or experiment on him. Maybe they were going to take him apart and eat him. He didn’t know.

There was so much blood now that even if he fell back into the water, he’d become food for the sharks and scavengers of the sea. He didn’t blame them, it was just the way things were. It still stucked though.

Lance really wished that he hadn’t left home.

Suddenly, everything stopped. The thrashing of the ship, the heavy wind and rain, it all stopped. Lance opened up his eyes and looked around, completely confused. He could hear fear and confusion from the humans as well.

Then the water exploded. Something shot out of it, slashing at the net like it was nothing. Lance fell down into the water, the storm erupting around him once again.

He started to sink, eyes fluttering, a shape looming above him. It looked like he was going to be shark food after all.

He didn’t realize that sharks had glowing, purple eyes though.

…

Lance awoke with a start. He stared up above him with confusion, mostly because he was somehow alive. Maybe it had been a nightmare? Maybe he was still at home and hadn’t stupidly left Arus, got attacked by bad humans, and fell into the ocean to feed the other fish.

Then he realized that the rocks above him certainly were not a part of his home. Their rocks were all lightly coloured, pale greys, browns, and whites decorated with colour. This was dark and plain.

He tried to push himself up, biting his lip when he almost cried out in pain. He looked down at his tail, eyes widening when he saw the long mark down his scales. The wound that had been there was sealed, but it still ached horribly.

That didn’t make sense. How long had he been asleep? Nothing healed that quickly. Mers could do stitches and had amazing healing medicines, but nothing like this. Unless he had been asleep for a very long time. Except he didn’t look like he lost a lot of weight or anything. He was hungry, but surely it would have been unbearable if he had been asleep for a long time, right?

Lance stilled as he heard clinking off to his left. He twisted a bit, realizing that he was in a comfortable little groove in a larger grotto. It was plain, not decorated in any way at all, but he felt oddly safe there. What he didn’t feel safe with was the knowledge that something was moving there.

Slipping out of his sleeping spot, Lance quietly swam forward, for once glad that he didn’t have a lot of fins to make too much noise. He peaked around the corner of the grotto, and almost gasped.

There was another mer there, and he didn’t at all look like anything Lance had seen before.

Firstly, his torso was pale, similar to Shiro, Pidge, and Matt. Lance had _never_ seen a mer like that before. They all had dark skin. Lance himself was on the paler end of things.

The mer was facing away from him, showing off his spines and flowing fins. His tail, spines, and fins were stripped grey and purple, and dear sweet Sea God, was he glowing? He was totally glowing. He had small scales and stripes that were glowing a faint purple.

Maybe Lance was dead. He had always wondered if there were mers in other places, and if they’d look different from him, but he had never expected someone to look _this_ different.

Okay, well, he had seen mers with those spines and fins before. They sort of resembled lionfish in a way, telling Lance that this mer might have a bit of venom going on. So his physicality in that respect wasn’t odd. He hadn’t seen a tail like that in those colours, but that was easy to get around, it happened depending on parents.

The weird part was definitely the glowing. What the hell?

Lance moved forward, almost in a trance, so he didn’t notice his tail going to hit the rock wall of the grotto. He certainly felt it though. He yelped, instinctively curling in on himself because it hurt.

“Hey,” a rather raspy voice, like it hadn’t been used in a long time, said, “you shouldn’t be moving around too much.”

Lance looked up at the other mer to say something, but instantly froze as his blue eyes met the mer’s indigo ones. He seemed equally taken back, eyes widening in shock, no doubt feeling what Lance was feeling.

He left home at a completely random time, prompted by Pidge’s random goading, and just happened to get caught by some bad people, and just happened to be saved by this mer that just happened to be there in the right place at the right time.

Suddenly, the term ‘fated’ mate made a lot more sense. Meeting as children in Arus didn’t really mean all that much, but Lance hadn’t even been gone for an entire day before he found him.

He found his fated mate.

Lance tried to move forward, but ended up cringing again. The other mer (His mate, it was his mate, his mind screamed at him.) darted forward, hands pressing against his shoulders to keep him still.

“You need to rest,” he said in the same, unused voice. “I could only heal you so much. You need to sleep.” He guided him back to where he had been before.

Lance was already feeling exhausted, but didn’t want to take his eyes off of the other mer. Panic erupted in his chest as he reached out, grabbing his hand as he tried to swim away.

The mer stopped and looked back at him oddly, really almost shyly. “I’ll be back. I’m going to get some food. Don’t worry, you’re completely safe here.”

Despite how dangerous the ocean could be, Lance found himself believing the mer without hesitation. His eyes were growing heavy as he nodded and said, “I’m Lance. What’s your name?”

The mer hesitated before saying, “Keith. My name’s Keith. Go to sleep.”

Maybe Lance was just too tired and a bit delirious, but as he faded back to sleep, he swore he heard Keith say, “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Before he could ask what he meant, sleep overtook him, and he was lost in comfortable dreams, feeling completely safe and secure.

…

“Hey. You need to get up for a bit.”

Lance shifted a bit, slowly blinking open his eyes, looking up to meet Keith’s gaze. He found himself lost in his eyes, because they were a little greyer than he had thought earlier, but there was definitely a twist of bluish-purple to them. It was like the pictures that Pidge had shown him of outer space, different swirling galaxies.

It didn’t help that Keith was quite literally glowing. He looked like something that had accidentally been left in the ocean by the Gods.

Of course, Lance could have been biased because Keith was his fated mate, but whatever.

Keith’s pale cheeks turned red, and Lance realized that he was staring at him. He felt his own face flushing a bit and said the first thing that came to his mind. “Well, hello there. What a nice sight to wake up to.”

The oddest sound came out of Keith’s mouth and he turned red all the way up to his pointed ears. He swam backwards slightly, his fins almost surrounding him protectively. He closed his eyes and muttered something to himself before staring at Lance sternly. “I have some food. You need to eat to get up your strength back. It’ll help you heal.”

A bit taken back by the sudden shift in personality, Lance didn’t know what to say at first. Finally, he managed to say, “Uh, okay. Yeah, I mean, I could eat.” He got up, moving carefully, and following Keith out into another cavern. It was only then that he realized that this wasn’t just a grotto. It was a series of caves. There were a few holes in the cavern’s roof, allowing sunlight to filter down, telling Lance three things. One, the storm had passed. Two, they weren’t very far underwater at the moment, and three, it was day time.

“I wasn’t sure what you ate, so I got some of…everything.” Keith sounded unsure of himself, and Lance looked around to see what he meant. He almost joked when he saw the wide variety of different fish and sea plants around.

“Holy crow, that’s a lot!” Lance exclaimed. He shifted closer, looking at it all, and could already _feel_ his stomach bloating. What could he say? He liked food. Blue eyes looked towards Keith almost pleadingly. “Please tell me you’re eating some?” Maybe it was just because they looked different, but to Lance, Keith seemed a little too skinny and small. Then again, from what he understood, he was built a little studier than many mers.

Keith eyed him like he was insane. “Yes?” Okay, maybe that was a bit of a stupid question. Keith grabbed a fish, twisting his tail to his side as he sat on the ground, Lance doing the same. He was a little bit jealous by the fact that Keith seemed way more flexible than him.

Lance picked up a fish excitedly. It was one of his favourites but he rarely ever had it, because they usually didn’t come into shallower waters. He ate with gusto, only realizing that Keith was staring at him a moment later. He felt his face flush and asked, “Is something wrong?” Was he not supposed to eat as much as he was?

Keith tilted his head slightly, black hair shifting as he eyed him curiously. “What’s a crow?”

He had not at all expected that. Lance laughed slightly, because honestly, it was adorable. “They’re black birds that usually stand in-land. One of my human friend told me about them and loads of other land creatures that don’t come close to the ocean.”

His eyes widened with curiosity and shock. “Human friend? You talk to humans?” He glanced down at Lance’s injury and back.

Lance’s hand fell to the healing wound, glad to feel that it didn’t hurt as much as the last time he woke up, though he did feel awfully stiff. “Yeah. The humans back home are pretty nice. They trade stuff with us all the time and make sure that people like the ones that did this don’t bother us.” He motioned to his tail.

“Huh.” Keith picked up another fish, bit into it, and then gagged. He glared at it as if it had offended him.

Lance laughed a bit. “Those things are great!”

“Do you want it then?” He held out the fish.

Lance took it without hesitation. Why would he be bothered by sharing a fish with his fated mate?

That thought made him feel odd. The giddiness returned, but with a bit of caution. Keith didn’t seem all too thrilled to see Lance, though to be fair, he was already getting the impression that the other mer hadn’t been around many people recently. He was pretty awkward.

“I’ve only ever seen humans from far away,” Keith suddenly said, “and they never seemed great.”

“So your city isn’t close to the mainland then?” Lance prompted. Might as well try to get the information to see if he was right, right? “Not near humans, at least.”

Keith tilted his head again, and Lance had to shush the part of him that cooed about how cute it was. “City?”

He didn’t know what a city was. “Yeah, you know, where you live with your family and a bunch of other families all together? I live in a city called Arus, which is really close to the human city, Altea.”

“Oh. Uh…no, I don’t…well…I mean I grew up with my dad and there were other that were semi-close to us. It took a few hours to get to them. Is that what you mean?”  
  
“No, that’s not a city. We live really, really close to one another. Work together. Talk to one another all the time, and there’s Queen Luxia who’s in charge of all of us.”

Keith looked at him in awe. “So you mean there are lots of mers together? That’s amazing!” He seemed to catch himself, and settled back down. “Like I said, I grew up with my dad when I was little.”

“Oh, your mom wasn’t around?” Lance couldn’t imagine his mother not being there. Then he flinched, realizing that he might be pushing a little too much. “Sorry. I’m not _trying_ to pry. I just want to know a little more about you, you know? You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to.”

“You really want to know about me?” Keith looked genuinely startled by this before looking down. “I met my mom when I got a bit older. She was staying with a bunch of my…uncles. Deeper in the ocean than where I grew up, and I grew up deep in the ocean. Nowhere near the land. I haven’t seen any of them in a very long time.”

That couldn’t be true. It was true, Mers had very long life spans.  It made Lance a bit sad to know that, while he was at the same developmental stage as Hunk and Pidge, but mers matured to adulthood at about the same pace as humans, primarily for survival purposes. From there, the development slowed and they lived as adults for hundreds of years. Allura had once said that the average Altean lived to be 100, so from there, he figured that from about the age of 20, for every one year a human aged, it took five years for a mer to age the same.  A 100-year-old human was about the same as a 420-year-old mer, give or take. Matt Holt would probably go crazy with that information.

The thing was, Keith seemed to be about the same age as Lance. Most fated mates were the same age, or there was a year or two difference between them. So for him to have grown up with his father, met his mother when he was older, but he hasn’t seen her in a long time? Something wasn’t adding up there.

Lance wanted to ask about this. He really, really did. He also didn’t want to push because Keith was talking to him and that was awesome.

“Where do you live now, here?” Lance asked, motioning to the empty cave. “It’s nice and roomy, but could use some more flare and decorations, you know?” Keith stared at him blankly. “Okay, you don’t know.” He would have to show him his house.

Keith observed him for a moment before saying, “I travel. A lot. Just always moving. I like this place though.”

Lance’s eyes lit up. “Really? That’s exciting! I’ve always wanted to travel too! Not that we’re allowed. In Arus we’re not supposed to go anywhere because of how dangerous the ocean is.”

Narrowed eyes stared at him, and Lance realized that Keith was definitely trying to keep a passive face for the most part, but his eyes were super expressive despite his best efforts. He sounded so skeptical as he said, “But you’re here on your own?” His voice rose in question, but it really wasn’t a question.

“Yeah, I left anyway.” Lance inched a little closer to him. “I don’t know if I’m winning or losing. I’ve lost my spear, I got attacked by the people I was checking on to make sure none of them drowned and got hurt.” He looked at his tale for a moment before looking back at Keith. “But I found you.”

Unable to hide his surprise, Keith’s cheeks turned pink as he said, “I—uh…”

“Sorry, sorry,” Lance chuckled. “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable! I’ m just—“

“Really good at it,” Keith interrupted.

“Uh, rude.” Lance moved close enough to nudge him, keeping an eye out for the barks that Keith probably had on him, hidden by his colourful fins. “You’re not very nice.”

The other mer just shrugged, not bothered by that.

Somehow, this was oddly endearing. That might have been the bond that Lance could already feel forming. They were strangers right now, it was okay to be iffy around one another. Proper bonds took time. Besides, he already could tell that Keith was a good person. He had to be. Who else would brave a storm, attack a ship to save a random mer, find a place to bring him when he was bleeding heavily, take care of him, and feed him? It also helped that he was all kinds of handsome.

Lance wanted to ask more questions, but as he moved, he grimaced, hands going down to his tail. Keith leaned forward to look at it, brow furrowing. “Hmm, it’s healing really well. Sometimes it takes a while for the small things on the inside to completely heal themselves though.

“Heal themselves? Wait, are you a healer?” Lance asked excitedly. He had heard of healers before. Mers that used magic to help those in need. That’d be a great reason to travel around.

Taken back, Keith stared for a moment before shrugging. “Something like that. Come on, you should get some more sleep. It helps.”

“It’s so uncomfortable there though,” Lance complained. He decided to try his luck by slumping down onto Keith. The other mer tensed, but after a moment, relaxed.

He hesitantly placed a hand on Lance’s head and said, “If it helps, sleep here.”

He didn’t even have the chance to thank him, nodding off to sleep again.


	4. Hunting

Keith was a very strange mer, Lance had come to realize. Maybe he really had been alone in the middle of the ocean for a long time, because he didn’t seem to know much about the surface world or what it was like in mer communities.

Something warm rushed through Lance’s chest every time he would tilt his head curiously and ask what he was talking about. It was kind of like talking to the humans, who were super interested in him because he was a mer that was willing to talk to them. The difference was that they all wanted to know about the world of mers in general. Keith seemed more interested in _his_ perspective and personal stories once he got over the big things.

“You mentioned that most mers in Arus have big families. Does that mean you have a big family?”

How could Lance not gush about his family when those big, curious eyes stared at him like that? He talked about his parents, his brothers, his sister, their fated mates, the guppies. He talked about his human friends. He ranted about Iverson.

As he spoke, Keith nodded his head, listening, but also checking his tail. He floated up a bit and said, “Looks good.”

“There’s a scar there,” Lance pouted as he prodded at it. “Yuck. My tail was boring, it doesn’t need to be scratched up too.”

“But scars show that you’re strong.” He looked at Keith curiously. He looked away and shrugged. “I mean, it shows that something bad happened but you’re still here so you’re stronger, right?”

“I never thought of it like that before,” Lance admitted. He always just assumed scars would take away from him. It was bad enough that he thought he didn’t have a fated mate for the longest time. He didn’t want to be ugly too. Maybe Keith was right though.

“Hey,” Keith perked up. “Since you’re feeling better, would you like to come hunting with me?” He fidgeted awkwardly, as if not used to asking someone to do such a thing.

Lance’s eyes lit up. “That sounds like an awesome idea!” That was absolutely something fated mates were supposed to do together. His father said that it made them learn to work together, to bond.

Not to mention he was tired of the grotto.

The water was clear with filtered sunlight. Lance practically yipped happily as he swam around in the water, swirling, twirling and making sharp turns. It took him a few moments to realize that Keith was still by the opening to the grotto, watching him with this oddly fond look.

Lance swam back down to him and said, “Aren’t you going to swim with me?”

“Yeah, I just…you can tell just from watching that you’re an amazing hunter, that you’re strong and powerful.” He spoke so bluntly, like his words should have been obvious.

“Me?” Lance’s cheeks burned. “I—I’m boring. Dull. I mean, look at you!” He motioned towards Keith’s fins.

He swam around Lance, able to twist in ways that he definitely couldn’t. “Lots of useless fins to make me seem bigger, to make me seem like more of a threat. Though because they’re flashy, they can attract attention from predators too. There’s reason I have to carry a weapon. There’s a reason I have poison barbs I can bring out. I’m fast, but I’m not exactly strong.” Keith shook his head and then tapped Lance’s tail. “You though, you’re made for stealth, hunting, strength, precision. You’re built to be a survivor, to be at the top of the food chain on your own right.”

Lance spluttered a little bit, because Keith wasn’t even trying to hide that he was admiring him. He was beyond flattered, but also embarrassed, because no one had ever talked about him like that.

Taking a deep breath, he leaned closer to Keith and said, “Well, I think you’re amazing too, so let’s put it to the test. Person who gets…ten fish first has to…do a favour for the other one?”

A competitive smirk appeared on Keith’s face. “Sure you can keep up? I think I’m faster.”

Something flared inside of Lance. Was it wrong to want to compete with your fated mate and show them up if you didn’t mean anything bad behind it? Oh well, it was only them there. “Bring it, Glowfish.”

“You’re on, Sharkboy.”

…

Lance had always loved hunting. There was something about it that always made his pulse jump with excitement. Of course, that could have been his natural instincts kicking in, along with the knowledge that he would actually get to eat at the end of it.

He had gone hunting a few times with his family in the past, and he was _good_ at it. Despite how shiny his scales could look in the sunlight, he tended to blend into the water better than his siblings. He had never thought of himself to be _built_ for hunting like Keith claimed, but he had always liked it.

The problem came from the fact that he tended to be a bit of a chatterbox no matter what. Yes, he could focus when need be, but when casually hunting? There was no need to be super serious about it. That had annoyed Marco and his father.

That seemed to be annoying Keith too.

Watching Keith hunt was nothing short of amazing, and led Lance to being very distracted. He was so focused and fast, able to zero in on fish that Lance hadn’t noticed for the life of him, and Lance had pretty perfect vision, thank you very much. Keith was swift and to the point, going into the hunt for the end goal of food alone without enjoying any of the fun of it.

That just wouldn’t do.

“I dunno, that fish looks a little scrawny,” Lance drawled, startling Keith, which in turn startled the fish. He snickered a bit as he watched the tiny thing dart off. It really wasn’t even worth their time, in his opinion. Everyone knew you only went after the big ones.

“What was that for?” Keith asked, brow furrowed and completely unimpressed. He shifted away, tail flicking slightly.

“You’re so tense,” Lance noted as he swam around him in almost a predatory circle. What could he say? Keith was nice to look at from all angles. “You should relax and have some fun.”

That clearly didn’t sit well with the other mer. “But we’re hunting to get food.” He crossed his arms in front of him. “It’s a _necessity_. Not for fun.” His fins spread in agitation, showing just how annoyed he actually was. Keith had been right earlier, with his fins spread out and that glare on his face, he actually was pretty intimidating to look at.

That didn’t deter Lance in the least though. “Uh, it can be both. Hunting is lots of fun.” Seriously, what was up with him? Even alone, hunting was fun and even cathartic.

Keith just growled slightly, fins flattening back down so he could move swiftly. Lance trailed along with him, wondering how he could get the uptight mer to relax a little bit. Hell, he wondered the last time Keith even had any fun.

He decided to show off a bit with the ridiculous, silly hunting strategies that his dad taught him when he was younger. They were ways to get little mers used to the idea of hunting, even if not everyone had to do it.

“We can’t hunt if you scare everything away!” Keith practically snarled as him, rounding around to glare heatedly, fins flaring up again. There was nothing playful or joking about his demenour. He was just plain mad.

“Would you chill?” Lance snapped back, rising to the challenge even if he _had_ been goofing off. “You’ll get something. Have some fun!”

Positively seething, Keith got into his face. “Can you _not_ take this seriously?”

“Do you have to be _so_ serious?” he shot back.

Jerking away, Keith growled again. “Bringing you with me was a mistake!”

Ignoring the pang in his chest, Lance decided that two could play at that. “Going with you was a mistake!”

Keith’s fins flattened close to him again. “I’ll do this on my own.” With that, he zipped off and was out of sight so quickly that Lance barely had time to process what happened.

So much for spending time together and bonding over hunting. He’d barely had any time to just admire how good at it Keith was before the other mer got so uptight about it all.

“Who needs him,” Lance muttered bitterly. He thought that fated mates were supposed to get along? Whatever. He had lived for this long without him. What was another 400ish years?

Lance prepared to swim off, but then paused. He looked around him as it hit him that he had absolutely no idea where he was to where to go. Yeah, he wanted to explore, but it was a bit different when his starting point was who-knows-where and he was heading in who-knows-what direction.

He did remember his way back to the caverns though.

Lance groaned and headed back that way. Yes, they had fought, but Keith was his fated mate. That did have to mean something, right? Surely he wouldn’t just take off and leave him alone out here. Wherever here was.

It was only when he got back that he realized he hadn’t even gotten any food. Lance groaned and slumped down onto the sea floor.

Forget all of this, he was going to have a nap.

…

Lance started awake, not quite sure what had happened to wake him up. He was safe inside of the caverns, unless some other predator had managed to find their way in.

“Lance.”

He jumped and looked around to see Keith hovering a little away from him, hand out like he had been about to shake his shoulder. Seeing that he was away, Keith pulled his hand back to his chest.

“Hey,” Lance muttered tiredly. He couldn’t help but be happy to see that Keith had come back and hadn’t just left.

The other mer shifted awkwardly and said, “I brought some food if you want some?”

Lance’s first instinct was to argue and say that of course _he_ didn’t need anything from _him_ at all, but just stomach grumbled, so there was no way he could deny his hunger. “Uh, sure. Thanks.”

He followed Keith back into the other part of the cavern, where there was a pile of fish. Unlike before, when they had been cautious but curious about one another, Keith seemed insistent on almost hiding away from him even though they were in the same room.

Growing up in a busy home as the youngest of three, Lance wasn’t used to everything being so quiet. He swore he could hear the waves above them if he tried. Swallowing his food, he glanced towards Keith and said, “In Arus, hunting is basically a job. We hunt to trade with the Alteans, and we hunt to feed ourselves. The hunters sell it to shop keepers, who prep it and sell it to everyone else. So we don’t actually hunt to eat. It’s more for sport, or occasionally getting our own food, but we can only go at certain times and it’s supposed to be fun.”

Keith actually was a good listening, not talking during the story, and keeping his attention completely on Lance. The mer tilted his head slightly and then looked down. “Oh. Um, I’ve never heard of something like that before. If I don’t hunt, I don’t eat. Sometimes it’s hard to find big things so you need to get a bunch of smaller ones.”

That had honestly never occurred to Lance, and now he felt incredibly stupid. Of course coming out on his own meant that he _had_ to hunt if he wanted to eat, there were no market meals waiting around for him. It made him feel incredibly stupid. With burning cheeks, he said, “I actually hadn’t thought about that, but I should have.”

He actually expected Keith to scoff at him, to call him stupid for not thinking of something so obvious. Instead though, the other mer shifted a bit, drawing Lance’s attention back to him.

Keith bit his lip, eyeing him briefly, before saying, “Can you tell me about it? Arus?”

Lance was surprised, not having expected that at all. Warmth bloomed in his chest as he thought of his family. “Sure.” He launched into stories about Arus, settling down for the long haul. Keith made himself comfortable, interrupting with occasional questions, but seemed content to eat his fish while listening to Lance’s stories.

_This_ was the kind of bonding Lance expected from his fated mate.

…

Lance breathed in the salt air as he stretched out over a large, warm rock. He had no idea where he was, just that they were around a little, uninhabited island in the middle of nowhere. It was actually kind of nice, because they could go up onto the beach to bask in the sands if they wanted to. He liked this rock though.

As almost an apology for being snappy with him, Keith shyly offered to show Lance this little island.

“I move around a lot,” Keith said, “but I always end up back here eventually. It’s kind of like my starting point. No humans ever come here, so it’s nice and safe.”

Lance had to agree with that. It was a beautiful place and he felt like he had no worries in the world there.

He heard a splash and glanced over as Keith surfaced, looking around suspiciously. Lance had very quickly learned that, even when he thought a place was safe, Keith was still overly cautious, and he wasn’t exactly comfortable near or on the surface.

Just the mention of going near the mainland seemed to make Keith tense and pout. He really didn’t want to go there. What an awkward goofball.

“Come on up, it’s nice!” He motioned for Keith to climb up next to him.

The other mer’s brow furrowed and he shook his head. “I’m fine.” He crossed his arms on the rock, tail and fins floating loosely behind him.

Lance shrugged. “Whatever. The sun is nice.” He rolled over and looked at him curiously. “So, I have a question.”

“You have a lot of those,” Keith replied sarcastically.

He glared and swatted at him half-heartedly with his tail. “Anyway. I was thinking that…that maybe I want to go and see my parents so they know I’m okay?” He loved exploring, but he also missed his family quite a bit.

Keith blinked a couple times before frowning. “Oh. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, you’re better now, right? Going home makes sense.”

Something warm squirmed in Lance’s chest. He didn’t like seeing Keith sad, but there was some genuine disappointment on his face. Despite their small spats, Keith _wanted_ him to stay.

He sat up, dipping half of his fin into the cold water. “I’ll level with you: I’m surprised that you’re still here.”

“Huh?” Always so eloquent.

Lance tapped his fingers together. “It’s just…you don’t seem overly thrilled with the whole fated mate things. You said it wasn’t supposed to happen. So, like, I expected you to take off as soon as I was better.”

“It’s not that!” Keith blurted out quickly, a flash of panic rushing across his features. “It’s not you. I swear. I—I actually like being around you.”

Lance fought a smile, puffing his head up instead. “What do you mean ‘actually’? I’m a catch!” He winked at Keith. “Literally. You caught me.” Keith stared at him blankly. He chose to move on and spare his fragile ego. “Anyway, it’s not just that I want to go home. I was kind of, sort of, hoping you’d come with me?”

It was obvious that Keith was taken back by this. “Really?”

Lance nodded eagerly. “Yeah! I mean, I survived going beyond the Drop-Off and everything and I found my fated mate, and you’re proof that there are other mers out there and we’re not alone!” He could picture it now. Everyone would be absolutely blown away by this. His niece and nephew would look up to him as a hero!

Keith didn’t seem nearly as enthusiastic about this as he had hoped though. In fact, he looked downright skeptical. “And what if they already knew? The people in charge?”

“What?” Lance had absolutely no idea what he was getting out.

The other mer hesitated for a minute before pulling himself up so that he was sitting beside Lance. He stared down at his tail, tracing the stripe patterns with his sharp nails. “Rules are made for a reason. Won’t you get punished for leaving?”

That hadn’t occurred to him at all, but those were actual laws, weren’t they? People had been punished for trying to leave, reprimanded for talking about it. “I…probably…”

“And they’d probably just be suspicious of me.”

Yes, now that he was actually thinking about it, Lance could see that too. His shoulders slumped. “You’re probably right.”

Keith nodded his head. “Maybe we can get close to it? And you can sneak in?” Lance looked up at him. He motioned to his tail. “I’d draw too much attention, but you’re built for stealth under the water. You could do it.” Under the water, of course, because Lance’s scales sparkled in the sun, like he was supposed to be on land and not in the sea.

He still wasn’t used to being praised like that, but right now, something else caught his attention. Something much more important. “You’d come back with me?”

Keith looked up at the sky. “I felt something the night I found you. I felt a pull. It urged me to that ship. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was to find you, I don’t know. I was—never supposed to meet you.” He hesitated before reaching out and roughly grabbing Lance’s hand. “I’ll go.”

Lance smiled brightly, weaving their fingers again and squeezing firmly. “You won’t regret it. I promise.”

They both laid back on the rock, the sun searing down on them and the waves lapping up beside them. Lance couldn’t stop smiling, feeling like everything was going right for the first time in his life.

…

“Did you find him?” A figure in a robe hunched over a figure on a large, canopy bed, blankets and sheets made from the finest red, black, and gold silks. They didn’t look back as they spoke.

The man beside the door twitched a bit, almost like he was readying himself to run. “N-No, your Highness. We have not. The ocean is vast and we—“

“Decided to come here without any results?” The figure turned around, purple and black magic forming on the tips of her fingers, golden eyes flashing angrily. “That is unacceptable.”

“F-Forgive me, your Highness,” he said, falling into a groveling bow.

She moved her hand up, and suddenly, his body lurched into the air, hovering in front of her. His eyes widened in fear as she jerked her hand, and he went flying, slamming into a wall with a sickening crunch.

Moving away from the now-still form on the ground, she walked closer to the bed and said, “Soon husband. Soon, this will all be over. Stay alive until then.”

They were so close to their goal that Honerva could almost taste it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't leave a note last time because, well, I was actually going through a super bad time. Depressive episodes really suck. Never got those when I worked full time, which is pretty telling. All is better now though!
> 
> I'm SUPER excited, but also super freaked out about S6 and everything I've read about it so far! I have SO many theories and I know most of them are probably wrong! 
> 
> I won't lie though, it's a bit annoying when you see people latch onto descriptions and start going on about how it's all about Klance (or just Lance, if I'm being honest...but these are usually the same people who scream that he hasn't gotten any development which is completely wrong). Like, guys, chill, please? Please chill? There are so many other relationships and avenues to explore. Hunk gets development? There's no way in hell we're not getting some kind of confrontation between Keith and Shiro (AHHHHHHHHH).
> 
> To those who have seen AtLA...I get the feeling THIS is our equivalent to the ending of S2 and look at what happened there. 
> 
> Be excited! Be hopeful! But remember that this isn't a show about romance. It's action, adventure, sci-fi, family/friendship first, as it should be. 
> 
> Also, you bet your ass I did a double take at the title of episode one. I couldn't help it!


	5. I Know You

Hunk was worried. Well, Hunk worried about a lot of things in general. He worried about his Tinās would get sick. He worried about his older sister, his nieces and nephews. He worried that the food he made might make someone sick. He worried that one of his friends were going to fall overboard and get pulled down beneath the waves. He worried he’d get seasick over important equipment that he himself had put hours into making.

Over the past few days, he had been worried for his mer friend, Lance. One of his brothers had actually found them and asked if they had seen him recently. They hadn’t.

Arus, from what they knew, was a pretty big place, as was the other underwater areas that the mers strayed to, yet Lance couldn’t be found anywhere.

“Do you think what I said made him leave?” Pidge asked, eyes wide with fear. She could be sarcastic and almost belittling at times, but she wasn’t cold hearted. She deeply cared about her friends, and that’s what Lance was. He wasn’t just a mer that was willing to let them study him.

“If Lance left, it was his own choice,” Matt assured her, rubbing her shoulder.

They were in the mini submarine, Coran and Allura waiting back on the ship for them, working some of their scanners and tools from above. They were heading down to check out a strange sonar hit from earlier, something that was big and probably shouldn’t be there.

That made Hunk nervous too.

“Do you see anything yet?” Allura asked through the comms system.

“Negative,” Shiro answered, turning on another set of lights that went around. The sub to light up in all directions. They had cameras going from different angles as well.

“It’s going to be a sea monster,” Hunk blurted out. “A massive sea monster that’s going to eat us alive and that’s why the mers don’t come out this way.”

“God, I hope so,” Matt muttered. He quickly looked at Hunk’s horrified face. “Not the being eaten part, but if there’s some new sea creature, we’ll absolutely get it documented.”

“There’s something below us,” Pidge spoke up, staring at the sonar scans. “It’s big. Definitely bigger than a mer.”

Hunk whimpered.

There was a sudden slap against the front windows, causing all of them, even Shiro, to scream. Then a familiar face appeared in front of them, and though they couldn’t hear it, he was definitely laughing.

“Lance! You asshole!” Pidge burst out, glaring at him. “You scared the shit out of us!”

There was a pause and then Hunk leapt up from his seat, leaning closer. “Lance! You’re alive! We were so worried! Wait, you’re out beyond the Drop-Off! You’re going to get in so much trouble! That’s okay though, because you’re okay!”

It was always interesting how mers could apparently hear so clearly underwater, because though they couldn’t hear Lance, he could definitely her them at least faintly. He sent them an apologetic look and shrugged his shoulders.

Then he suddenly looked over his shoulder, staring at something for a moment before looking rather alarmed. He swam up to the top of the sub, and suddenly the entire thing jerked, all the lights flickering and going on.

“What was that?” Hunk asked, his voice pitching.

Shiro scrambled for something, managing to get one light on for a split second to see a massive eye staring at them, tentacles wrapping around the sub.

“Is that a fucking giant squid?” Pidge yelped.

“It’s too big!” Matt yelled back even though he was right beside her. “It looks like a colossal squid, but much, much bigger! Holy shit!” He was clearly losing his mind for more than one reason.

“Lance is outside,” Hunk blurted out. “That thing could swallow him whole in one bite.”

As if hearing them, Lance leaned down so that he was illuminated by their instruments and screens inside of the sub. His face was worried, and, oddly enough, slightly annoyed. He looked up again, and seemed to say something, though they couldn’t hear him.

Then the purple glow appeared. A moment later, the squid let go of them swam towards the light, completely focused on it. It didn’t attack though, it just stared.

The glowing creature moved around it, revealing another mer. One that completely distracted Matt entirely because not only did he look very different from Lance with his pale skin, but he was _glowing_. 

Without any hesitation, he swam right up to the squid, touching above its eye. The two sea creatures stared at one another, before the glowing mer moved. Everyone watched in pure awe as the squid leisurely followed him, not trying to grab at him or any of them as they descending into the murky waters.

Lance was watching this, and shook his head. He motioned upwards, and Shiro quickly got the hint.

“Oh my god,” Hunk breathed out. “Oh my god.”

“Keep it together,” Shiro said to them sternly. “At least until we’re back on Voltron.”

That was a bit of a struggle. All of them were freaking out for completely different reasons.

They started to rise back to the surface to assess the damage done. Shiro managed to get the sub back into the loading dock of the ship, which sealed under them. He situated them and said, “Alright, Black’s in. We can get out now.”

Hunk was the first one that scrambled out. Coran and Allura were waiting there for them, but they weren’t alone. Lotor was with them along with one of his assistants, Narti. From what they understood, he had three more personal assistants, but they were working on things for him back home.

Like Allura, Lotor was royalty, the Prince of a country called Daizabaal that was across the sea from the island kingdom of Altea.

Lotor was tentatively Allura’s betrothed, and they seemed to get along well enough. Both were researchers and scholars in different ways, and he knew that Lotor took his interests seriously, and that he too was curious about mers and the world beneath the ocean. There was something about him that always put Hunk on edge, but right now, he couldn’t think about that.

He was glad to be alive.

“What happened?” Allura asked, her eyes wide and cheeks flushed with worry.

“Allura!” Matt actually yelled, stumbling over to her. “Allura, it was a fucking colossal squid but way bigger than has EVER been documented! We saw it! We probably got it on video! Not only that but it was lured away by the most amazing mer I’ve ever seen!”

“Lance!” Hunk blurted out, suddenly hurrying by them. “Lance was there too!”

Pidge followed him closely as they rushed onto the deck. Once they were in the open, salty air, both could clearly hear arguing.

“—So that think apparently exists! What next? Megaladon? Does that exist too?” Lance was positively screeching in distress.

“Would you calm down? Those guys normally stay much, much deeper. Actually, they usually stay in the Antarctic so I don’t even know what it’s doing here. And don’t worry about the giant sharks. I can count the amount of them on one hand, and there’s only one male and he’s very old. They might as well be extinct now.”

“…They actually exist?!” Lance squeaked loudly. 

Hunk looked over to see Lance beside the edge of the boat that he would normally climb up onto, clearly ready to jump up. Not that Hunk could blame him. That was a giant squid, and though mers were very high on the food chain, he would have been a snack to that one.

The other mer was a little farther away, eyeing the ship with clear distrust. He didn’t answer Lance, looking up towards Hunk suddenly, and ducking a little more into the water so that only his eyes and the top of his head was visible.

“Lance!” he called to him, hurrying forward.

The mer’s head shot up, a smile appearing on his face. “Hunk! Hey!” He climbed the rest of the way up onto the boat as Hunk almost slid down the stairs. Coming to a stop beside the mer, he reached out and hugged him tightly.

“We were worried about you! You big jerk!” Pidge yelled as she slid to a stop beside them too. She smacked Lance’s arm. “Asshole!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he smiled at them and shrugged. “I just…I decided to explore for a little while.”

“Is it because of what I said?” Pidge asked, her voice going quiet. “I didn’t mean for you to go and put yourself in danger. And as we’ve just seen, there’s a lot of danger out there.”

Lance hesitated before saying, “I’ve always wanted to go and I guess…yeah you prompted me too, but it’s fine. I would have gone eventually anyway.” He lit up. “Besides, I totally proved that Arus isn’t the only colony of mers out there.” He leaned forward. “Why are you ducking down still? These guys are my friends!”

Pidge leaned over the edge to look down at the other mer, who was still eyeing them suspiciously. Lance scooted over some and said, “Come on, these things are safe! Just grab the ledge and pull yourself up. You can even stay on the bottom step and leave your tail in the water.” The mer tilted his head slightly. “Oh, right.

Grab the ladder and pull yourself up.” The mer tilted his head slightly. “Oh, right. These things here are stairs.” He hit the stairs with his tail. “It’s fine, I’ll help you if you need it.”

It was hesitant, but the other mer slowly moved to the edge of the boat, carefully putting his hands on the ledge and pulling himself up.

Pidge couldn’t help but stare at him in awe. She had seen mers with this pattern before, liking them to lionfish, but his colouration was completely wrong, plus he had been glowing in the ocean. It was hard to tell the daylight though, his scales looking almost dull and plain beside Lance’s shining ones.

Lance reached down to help him up the rest of the way, and Pidge heard Matt gasp behind her. She could understand it. If his odd colouring and bioluminescence wasn’t strange enough, he was the first pale-skinned mer that they had ever come across.

“You must be a deep sea dweller,” Matt said, moving closer, ignoring the way the other mer shrunk back and eyed him warily with his dark eyes. “But you also resemble the mers that look like lionfish. Do you have poison barbs? Can you control them? Can you control your bioluminescence? The glow? Is your family like you? Where are you from exactly?”

“Matt,” Lance said, eyes narrowing. It was clear that the other mer was uncomfortable, edging closer towards the edge of the boat, no doubt preparing to drop back into the water.

Matt was about to reply, but Shiro broke in instead. He was staring at the mew in awe. “I knew I didn’t make it up.”

Shiro could feel everyone’s eyes on him, but the only pair that mattered were those indigo ones staring at him. He remembered now. He remembered his eyes opening up a bit as something slammed down on his diaphragm, forcing the salt water out of his lungs. It was only for a fleeting second, but he remembered indigo eyes.

He remembered the glow in the water. A part of him had wondered if he made it up, but Shiro knew he hadn’t. It wasn’t just that this mer looked like the one that he was sure had saved him. This _was_ that mer.

At first, the mer looked a bit confused, but then his indigo eyes fell to Shiro’s arm, and he recoiled, crossing his arms in front of him. He nodded his head.

Lance looked surprised by this. “What’s he talking about?”

When the mer didn’t answer, Shiro said, “You were the one that pulled me out of the water in that storm. When I lost my arm. I was the only one that survived.”

He wanted to know exactly what happened that night. Exactly why he had been saved and no one else. He couldn’t find the words though.

“The needs storms,” the mer said after a moment. “Everything needs those bad things with the good things. It’s how things work. But that shouldn’t have happened.” He looked down, playing with the delicate fins trailing from his tail. “Everyone else was dead. I had another.” He was clearly uncomfortable, perhaps a bit upset. “One person even died in my arms before I could get to shore.” He squirmed a bit. “He begged me to let him go. To let him go in the ocean. To find his son.”

Shiro inhaled sharply. They all knew the story of how he had lost his arm and his father. His voice wavered as he asked, “So you left him. You couldn’t even let me bring him home?”

“He begged me,” the mer repeated, crossing his arms in front of him. “That wasn’t his last words though.” The last part was blurted out quickly, almost like a forgotten thought. “It was Takaishi. Whatever that means.”

Shiro took a deep breath, not quite sure how to process that. He had always wondered _exactly_ how his father died. What his last thoughts were.

Now he knew his last thoughts were of _him_.

Shiro was about to say something else, when Lance bristled a bit, tail jolting with clear agitation. “It’s what he wanted. Doesn’t that count? He wanted Keith you save you.” It wasn’t lost on anyone there that the normally non-aggressive mer looked ready to throw hands with Shiro.

The man decided to bow out after that, taking a couple steps back.

Apparently Lotor took that as his opportunity to approach. He stared at the mer with obvious interest. “Fascinating, I’ve never even heard of a mer like you before.”

“Nor have I,” Allura agreed, moving forward and kneeling down a few feet away so that they were eye-level. “Hello. I’m Allura, Princess of Altea. This is my ship, Voltron. We study the seas and mers within it to help other people understand more, so that we can help protect the oceans.”

“Humans want to protect the ocean?” he sounded so skeptical that it made all of them feel a little bit called out.

“But of course,” Lotor answered smoothly. “The more knowledge we have of your kind, the more we know the limits of what we can and can’t do in the ocean.”

Lance scoffed a bit, absentmindedly tracing the pattern on one of the mer’s fins.

“Lance asked me if giant sharks exist too. I think you call it megaladon? They do exist. Sort of. There are about eight of them left in the world. I know there’s only one male. One that’s so old, living out his last days, and will never breed again. There were more, but _you_ pollute the ocean to the point where there are trash islands and zones with no oxygen. _You_ overfish and hunt for sport. You throw your poisons into the ocean without a care. _You’re_ the reason they’re extinct.”

 “You can’t possibly know that,” Pidge blurted out. He looked at her sharply, and she grimaced. “I don’t mean that to be a jerk or to argue with you. You’re not wrong. But you can’t know if there are only that many, right?”

“Keith travels,” Lance spoke up, sounding almost proud. “So he would know.”

“Even so, you can’t know exact numbers.” Pidge processed the name. For some reason, she hadn’t expected this mer’s name to be _Keith_. It almost sounded to plain and ordinary, like the glow had been added later on in life as an afterthought.

“I do,” Keith said firmly, and oddly enough, Pidge _believed_ him. It wasn’t logical, but she did.

“That’s exactly what we want to prevent,” Allura said, her voice soft. “I wish to understand mer life and culture, to create strong bonds between our different species. Helping re-discover your world, helping fix the damage humans have done, is one of our goals. We want to help fix the mistakes that people like us have made.”

“As best as we can,” Lotor agreed without hesitation.

Keith looked skeptical, his hand twitching to what they realized was probably some sort of weapon or dagger strapped around his torso.

Lance seemed to see this too, reaching out and putting his hands on top of Keith’s. The mer looked at him, and he said, “Alteans are good people, and these guys are my friends. Well, most of them.” He eyed Lotor and Narti for a moment. “Arus and Altea have been friends for a long time. You can tell who Alteans are by the marks under their eyes, and the people they bring with them are trustworthy too.”

Allura pointed to the pink marks under the corners of her eyes. Keith tilted his head curiously, his fingers going to the single purple mark that ran down one side of his face, down his neck and down the center of his back, blending in with one of the horizontal stripes.

“How can you be sure?” Keith asked suddenly, looking towards Lance. “You were attacked by people not long ago. They would have killed you.”

“What?” Hunk burst out, everyone else equally as startled, taken back, and affronted. “Lance, what happened?”

He grimaced and told them the story of how he met Keith, of his very first night away from Arus.

“…But my friends here, these humans, they’re not like those ones,” Lance assured Keith. “Even if you can’t trust them, you trust me, right?”

It was an odd thing, watching the cautious, suspicious mer lock eyes with Lance. His expression visibly softened, shoulders slacking slightly as he nodded his head.

“If I could get my hands on those rabble-rouzers…” Coran trailed off with an angry scowl. “Are you sure you remember nothing about them, Lad? Nothing specific?”

“The only thing I remember is the name of the ship, but even then, I might be wrong. It was kind of a wild ride,” Lance admitted. “I think it was Sincline though.”

“Sincline?” Allura repeated slowly, like it meant something to her.

Lance shrugged a bit at that before looking at Keith. “Did you see anything?”

“The one that hurt you,” Keith said, his voice stern. “He had one eye and a massive scar that went across it. He was wearing an eyepatch.”

…

“Was that your ship?” Allura demanded the second that she and Lotor were alone in one of the research labs. “Sincline, that’s the name of _your_ personal ship, isn’t it?” Her fingers twisted into fists, nails digging into her palms. “Attacking a mer is the same as attacking a human. Trying to take them is the same as kidnapping! This isn’t just poaching! If he would have died it would have been murder! It’s assult!”

“I am aware,” Lotor replied evenly. “I had nothing to do with that. You are correct though, Sincline was one of the ships that I commissioned, but it’s not mine. Currently, my personal ship is Sincline II, though I have plans on moving to Sincline III, which is essentially going to be an oceanic research lab. It’s quite the feat.” Realizing that he was getting off track, he looked back at her. “Sincline is the one I gifted to my mother, Queen Honerva.”

Allura blinked with surprise. “Honerva is Altean.” It was as if that explained why she should know attacking a mer was a horrible idea.

“She is,” Lotor agreed. “And she’s one of the most intelligent people I know. But that doesn’t have to mean anything.”

…

“So,” Shiro asked the crew as they sat in the tiny galley of the ship, Hunk’s wonderfully made sandwiches in front of them. “What do you guys think of Keith?”

“He’s amazing!” Matt blurted out before anyone else could say anything. “It’s so fascinating how there technically isn’t subspecies of mers even though we try to give them some. It’s all just environmental adaptations from what we can tell! I’d love to get a few samples from Keith to test that out since he’s the first outlier we have for our data! You can tell he’s adapted for darker places, and the fact that he glows is amazing.”

“He’s a bit…hostile?” Pidge broke in before her brother could keep going on and on. “Like, I get it if he’s been traveling alone, but still. Also, are we not going to talk about the fact that he got a giant squid to follow him without getting hurt? And apparently chills with megaladons that actually do exist? And that he knows how many are left? And I believe him! What kind of nonsense is that?”

“Magic is something that mers have more access to than most people, outside of a few like Allura,” Hunk pointed out. “Maybe he has stronger stuff. But Matt, I’m surprised you’re not going on about Keith and Lance.”

“What about Lance?” Matt asked, blinking at him with an almost wild look on his eyes.

Hunk hesitated before saying, “You were too focused on just Keith to see it, weren’t you?”

“I’d say so,” Coran agreed them as he swept into the room, collecting a sandwich of his own and sitting down. “Have you seen Narti? I can’t seem to find her anywhere.”

“She’s probably in her cabin, she likes the quiet,” Shiro answered. “Now what are you talking about?”

“It’s quite obvious that our dear Lance is very taken with Keith. Smitten, if you will,” Coran said with a nod.

“Yeah,” Hunk agreed. “He was ready to fight you, Shiro, for getting in Keith’s face.” He looked at Matt with a shrug. “So I guess that answers one question you had. Attraction to the same sex does extend to mers.”

“So maybe all those other ones we’ve seen in the past were couples too and we kept labelling them as ‘pod mates’ or ‘friends’,” Matt replied eagerly.

Pidge snorted, and they look at her curiously. “We did the thing where you see a same-sex couple walking down the street holding hands and say ‘look at what very good friends they are and oh look they live together to save money and those kids with them must be the ones they’re babysitting together’ or something.”

Hunk snorted loudly as Shiro barked out a laugh. Matt groaned and put his head down on the table for a moment before looking back up. “Maybe we’ll finally get some answers about things like that!”

Bless Matt Holt, really nothing could keep him down for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE.
> 
> Also a clip was released and I'm not going to say anything because some people want to go into the new season blind, but I am internally SCREAMING at the implications. 
> 
> I'm trying to power through the rest of this, because I'm scarily losing inspiration for it so I want to get this out before the other ideas I have overtake my mind!


	6. Strange Human Things

Shiro was always up with the sunlight in the morning. When they were out at sea, Coran would take the night shift at the controls, and Shiro would swift off with him in the early morning.

He loved this time of day. There was something about the quietness of the ship before everyone woke up along with the sound of the waves, the smell of the sea, and the sunrise in the morning.

He made sure that the auto-pilot was on before making his early morning rounds around the deck to check on everything. When he approached the stern, he heard a distinctive splash and looked up. Shiro almost expected to see Lance, and was taken back to see Keith instead.

No one was quite sure where the two mers went when they left, but they figured that they were together, because Lance would always show up later on, dragging a reluctant Keith with him. This new mer was always a little skeptical of them, always watching them warily.

He never once approached any of them alone.

Straightening his shoulders, Shiro smiled warmly. “Good morning, Keith. How are you?”

The mer tilted his head curiously before saying, “I’m good?”

“That’s good.” Shiro smiled again. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Keith bit his lip, not breaking the skin despite how sharp his teeth were. Slowly, the mer pulled himself up onto the bottom stair and said, “I—I wanted to apologize. For not being able to save your father.” He squirmed slightly. “I—it’s not very fun losing them. I know.”

Shiro had the feeling that Keith had been alone for a while. He was so awkward around all of them, even Lance, and he didn’t seem to understand most social situations.

He carefully walked forward, sitting down a little away from Keith. He stared at the mer for a moment before saying, “May I ask what happen to him?”

Keith blinked. “You…just did?” It wasn’t sarcasm, but genuine confusion.

“When someone asks something like that, they’re trying to see if it’s okay to talk about the subject,” Shiro explained to him.

“Oh.” The mer took that new knowledge in for a moment before nodding. “Mers would have just asked no matter what. My dad got sick with an illness he couldn’t get better from.”

For some reason, Shiro expected a dramatic story of fishermen, a daring rescue, or something along those lines. It would explain Keith’s wariness of people. This was much more simply, yet no less sad.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Shiro said to him.

“It was a long time ago,” Keith answered.

The two sat in silence after that, watching the sunrise in peace. Despite the lack of conversation, Shiro felt like they were making a real connection.

Keith must have agreed, because he showed up the next morning and the next to watch the sunset. Some days Shiro spoke about his travels. Some days they just sat in silence. It didn’t particularly matter.

For some reason, Shiro got the feeling that his father was smiling down on them.

…

“You _need_ to try this.” Lance swam in rapid circles around Keith, holding the little cake that Hunk had given him above his head so it wouldn’t get wet.

Hunk had to stifle a chuckle from where he was sitting on the steps into the water. Not only at his friend’s antics, but at the look of pure, dry annoyance on Keith’s face.

“Maybe he would if you weren’t making him so dizzy,” Hunk suggested. 

“It’s fine,” Lance insisted, practically bouncing up and down in the water in excitement. “Right Keith? We’re go—“ He cut himself off as the cake slipped out of his hand, landing on the top of Keith’s head.

Everyone froze, Keith hand slowly reaching up to push the smashed cake out of his hair. He looked at the mess on his hand and fixed a stern glare on Lance. Even Hunk wanted to run away from that look, and he was safely away from the mer on the boat.

Keith swung his hair around, sending a wave of water towards Lance, who squeaked before the fins could hit him, diving under the water to get away from him.

The water kept going, strong enough to get up to the step Hunk was sitting on. That was fine, everyone was always prepped to get went, but what he wasn’t expecting was to slip and end up in the water.

Hunk had grown up around water, and was a very strong swimmer. He was just a little stunned to suddenly end up in the ocean. He didn’t even get the chance to tread water before hands were grasping at his arm and yanking him back up to the surface.

He spat out a little bit of water, and looked around to see Keith staring at him in horror.

“I’m sorry,” the mer babbled. “I didn’t mean to knock you into the water! Are you okay? I’m sorry!”

Hunk couldn’t stop himself from laugh a bit and said, “It’s fine. I’m feeling fin-tastic.” This was where everyone else, including Lance, would groan.

Keith, on the other hand, stared at him with wide eyes before promptly burst out into laughter. He had to let Hunk go, because he was almost doubling over in the water. If Keith wasn’t a mer, Hunk would have been worrying about him drowning.

“I’m glad you liked my joke,” Hunk said, wanting to test a theory. “I’m really so-fish-ticated.” He grinned broadly, not caring that he was treading water in the middle of the ocean, Voltron slowly getting farther away.

Keith snorted with laughter, prompting Hunk to laugh. The mer reached out, grabbing his arm again and helping him catch up to the boat, pushing him back on, laughing the entire time.

Eventually, Lance showed up with a strange, sponge-like thing for Keith, which the other mer used to get the last of the sticky mess off of his head, his normally pale cheeks red from laughter.

“What’s going on?” Lance asked, instinctively smiling it.

“Hunk’s hilarious,” Keith choked out.

“What?” Lance looked between them.

“Keith appreciates my puns,” Hunk said proudly. He grinned at the horrified look on Lance’s face. “Don’t be so salty.” He knew that Keith would catch that on. He had heard Lance explain what ‘being salty’ meant when Pidge said it earlier.

Sure enough, Keith started laughing loudly, and Lance groaned. Despite that, there was still a smile on his face as he stared at the other mer affectionately.

Hunk had a feeling that he and Keith were going to get along just swimmingly.

He made sure to tell them that one.

…

There was many researchers out there that scoffed at mers, that looked down to them like they were _less_ than humans.

“They don’t have our technology,” some would point out.

“Put them on land and they’re helpless,” another said.

Pidge had heard all of these things before, and in a way, it made sense to her growing up. Surly a species that couldn’t _actually_ keep up with them, despite apparently having very similar brains, was inferior to humans. Knowing that her brother was curious about exploring the depths (“We know more about the moon than the ocean floor! Our own planet! Why go to a distant moon when there are mysteries here?”), she had posed this theory to him.

Matt had shot it down. He had explained that mers were just as intelligent, they just had different environments to work with. It wasn’t like they could use electricity or anything. They made amazing things with what they had.

Seeing the world in a different way didn’t make them any _less_ than humans.

After spending time with mers, Pidge found that she truly could agree with that. Lance seemed to have the ability to latch onto different concepts she explained, had even learned how to use her (waterproof) laptop, and definitely had an average grasp on math. He was also super curious and willing to help with some of her experiments.

As they grew closer and closer to Altea again, Pidge was testing out a new kind of sonar and hydrophone that she had created, putting specific sounds into the water to draw in different species or at least be able to communicate with them properly.

She was sitting at the edge of the boat, equipment in hand and testing out the sounds. Lance had gone underwater holding a transmitter that he could hit if he heard the sound or if he didn’t, and it would pop up on her screen. So far it seemed to be going good.

Then Keith popped out of the water. He didn’t stare at the ship carefully, waiting to see if it was safe or not to get on. He just jumped up, pulling his tail out of the water and _glaring_ at the ocean like it had offended him. His glare travelled to the wires that led to her new machine.

“Uh?” Pidge stared at him, not really knowing what to make of this.

“That thing is making the worst sound ever,” Keith complained. “I’m pretty sure that’s the sound dolphins make when they’re swearing at one another but worse.”

“Dolphins swear at one another?” Pidge asked.

He eyed her. “Does that really surprise you?”

She thought about that for a moment before saying, “No. It really doesn’t.”

“Good, cause they’re assholes.” Keith stared at her seriously. “I love them to pieces.”

Pidge snorted loudly and played another sound. “So my AquaScreech is too loud?”

“If it has the word ‘screech’ in it, it might be just right,” he replied dryly.

Nodding her head, Pidge started reeling the microphone back up. She set it on the edge of the steps as Lance popped up in front of them.

He grinned at Keith. “Wimp.”

“Just because _you’re_ used to unholy screeching…”

“ _Listen_ it’s not that bad!”

Pidge pressed a button to test her AquaScreech, unleashing an unholy seagull screech into the air. Both mers tensed up at the sound and stared at the machine with disgust.

Then Keith’s expression turned curious. “I didn’t know you recorded Lance singing.”

Lance protesting by screeching loudly at him and slapping at his tail, which prompted Keith to slap back until the blue mer dragged him back into the water.

Pidge might have helped him, but she was too busy laughing loudly to the point of tears.

…

Matt had to admit, he was super excited to interact with a mer that was quite different from what they normally saw, but at the same time, also similar.

Mers seemed to take on different patterns and shapes that resembled different kinds of fish more than anything else. As far as anyone knew, the only sample they had to work with was from Arus, and the variety of tale shapes, colours, and patterns was wide. He’d seen mers that looked like, trigger fish, butterflyfish, regal tang, angelfish, cardinal fish, clownfish, mandarian fish, rainbow parrot fish, different kinds of dolphins, whales, and sharks, he had even seen some that looked like a pufferfish. The interesting aspect of that though is, from the samples they collected, there were no subspecies of mer. There were no ‘fish-mer’, ‘whale-mer’, ‘shark-mer’ or anything like that. There were just mer.

He, like other researchers, theorized that their differences came from their ancestors who travelled more, who lived in different environments and adapted to them before coming together, just the way humans had.

Matt had always wished for an outlier to test this with, to see if he was the same. He had finally gotten that in Keith.

It took them a while to convince the mer that it was okay, that Matt wasn’t going to torture him or anything, just study him and collect a few samples. It was good that he seemed to be bonding a little bit with everyone else, because they definitely helped to convince him.

The thing was, when Matt got over the colouration and the glowing, Keith actually wasn’t that strange at all. He physically resembled any other mer that looked like a lionfish, and had the same defenses (minus the fact that he actually carried a blade with him in a sheath).

The pale skin made sense after Keith described his home environment. Deeper in the ocean meant less light, so his skin being washed out was natural, though Matt had to admit, he was curious why Keith’s eyes appeared to be the same.

Then he did a test with Lance as a comparison, and apparently Lance’s eyesight was much, much sharper in normal light. Keith seemed to be able to see in the darker better though.

Matt could even explain away the bioluminescence as being that Keith was from the deep sea, except for the fact that Keith didn’t seem to have any control over it like every other creature with that adaptation. That was definitely odd.

Observations was fine, but Matt was a man of science and wanted to get some real data to see if Keith was like every other mer, or if perhaps there actually were subspecies. The second that he pulled out a needle though, Keith went on the defensive.

“Calm down, it’s not a weapon,” Matt assured him.

“It sure looks like one,” the other mer said, scooting closer to the edge of the boat.

“It’s not. It’s just to either collect samples or to give someone medicine. These ones are made to take blood. I put it in a vein and then blood comes—“

“You want to take my blood?” Keith looked more than a little alarmed at that. He flailed, slapping the needle out of Matt’s hand. It flew, and ended up landing on Pidge’s hand, causing the girl to start cursing angrily. She pulled it out, and Keith stared in horror at the small speck of blood on her hand.

He didn’t even bother going to the part of the ship that was designed for him to go in and out. He grabbed onto the side and, in an impressive show of upper body strength, pulled himself over, dropping down into the water.

Pidge started laughing loudly, and Matt sighed at his sister. “Shut up.” He’d have to try again later.

…

“If I could get my hands on the Scobberlotchers that keep doing this, I’d—“ Coran stopped mumbling to himself when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. His frown turned into a smile and he said, “Hello Keith, how are you?”

Keith swam beside the boat almost lazily, watching what Coran was doing with obvious curiosity. “I’m good. What are you doing?”

He motioned towards his feet, where there was a pile of plastic. “I try to get any floating trash I see out of the water, it’s horrible for the marine life.”

Apparently that was the right answer, because Keith seemed oddly pleased with this answer. “That’s true. I’ve seen a lot of things that have been strangled or choked on stuff like that.”

“Yes, it’s why I try to wrap everything we bring with us with this special paper that dissolves in water,” Coran said with a nod. “Why, my grandfather once said…”

Coran didn’t mean to go off into tangents of stories, but he still did. Keith wasn’t exactly the most patient listener, but he definitely was reactive and pretty curious.

Half way through his story, Lance had popped up beside Keith and started listening. He was much more invested in the stories, attentive and excited. It only spurred Coran on more. He wasn’t sure how long he was talking, but that didn’t particularly matter. Most everyone else on the ship didn’t even bother pretending to listen to his stories anymore. It’s what made him so fond of Lance, since the mer seemed so interested n them.

“…And that’s why I missed my chance to see a blue whale.” Coran sighed. “I’d love to see one, but I guess it’s not in the cards. Anyway, when I—“ He stopped talking as Keith abruptly went back into the water.

Lance looked down curiously, before shrugging and looking back up to Coran. “Ignore him. I want to hear the rest!”

With just the slightest bit less enthusiasm, Coran continued talking. What felt like a few minutes later though, Lance suddenly looked down at the water, confused. “Um, hold that thought. I’ll be right back.” He quickly ducked under the water as well.

Only a few moments later, Coran saw exactly what he had noticed. A massive, dark shape appeared in the water, and a moment later, a huge blue whale surfaced, a small one trailing alongside it. Keith and Lance were holding onto the whale on his back.

“You said you wanted to see one, right?” Keith called out to him, and Lance looked at the other mer almost adoringly.

Coran laughed excitedly, small prickles of tears in his eyes at the sight of the two whales.

…

Coran was normally the one in charge of the ship at night, but sometimes Allura insisted that he rest and she take over. She had been around boats all of her life and knew how to captain them, big or small. Not to mention it was technically her ship, so she wanted to take responsibility sometimes, especially when her advisor had worked so hard during the daytime.

They were still in deep water, and would be for a while, though they were getting much closer to Altea now. The autopilot system worked wonders due to Altea’s technological advancements.

She leaned against the rail of the ship, staring out at the starry sky, singing a tune that her mother had taught her along time ago. She didn’t often sing in front of other people, but it was late at night and none of her crew was awake.

She didn’t take into account their friends from the sea.

“You have a nice voice.”

Allura jumped, startled by the sudden intrusion. She looked down, lips parting in awe as she stared at Keith. Though his body was mostly beneath the water, she could still make out the unique glow on his tail and fins. It was the first time that she had seen it herself, and not on camera.

Pulling herself together, she smiled and said, “Thank you. I don’t usually sing in front of others. I’m a bit out of practice.”

Keith tilted his head slightly. “That’s out of practice?”

She laughed lightly. “Yes. I only sing for fun and haven’t formally trained in years. When I was younger, I thought thought it would help me relate to mers a little more. There are so many stories of mers and music. I was a bit embarrassed to find out that music doesn’t matter all that much.”

“Huh.” Keith turned onto his back, lazily floating beside the boat, giving her a much better look at his tail with its vibrantly glowing stripes. “Mers used to sing a lot, and most still probably can, but no one uses it anymore. I mean, from what Lance says, there’s not really a need for individuals to go hunting every day, so why use something designed to lure prey in?”

“The only prey that would be lured in by that are humans,” Allura said.

“Yup.”

She paused, staring down at him with surprise. “Are you telling me the stories of mers eating people are true?”

Keith’s lips twitched, and then he chuckled. “No. I mean, a desperate, starving one might. Sirens used to, but they couldn’t adapt and died out, and they usually preferred mers. Glad those things were gone well before I was born. No, what I meant was that mers used to be able to lure in big schools of fish and stuff with music at one point. That’s what my mother told me, at least.”

Allura hummed thoughtfully. “Interesting. Have you seen many other mer out there?”

He shrugged. “Not really. They’re there though. There are small pods, some that migrate, some that stay put. Doesn’t sound like nearly as much as Arus, from what Lance says.”

She nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. Big groups would have been noticed. There’s so much we don’t know, and I would love to be of any help I could to help uncover some of the past that Arus seems to have lost.”

Keith observed her for a moment, like he was trying to get into her head to see what was making her tick. Slowly, he nodded and said, “I guess it’s nice to know that not all people are bad.”

Somehow, that really felt like a win for Allura.

…

Lance was relieved to see that Keith seemed to be getting used to his human friends. He didn’t flinch when they called out to him anymore, didn’t stay in the water behind Lance with only the top of his head peaking out.

The first time that they had come into the ocean with them in their wet suits, when they were close to Arus, Keith had seemed both curious and oddly protective. It kind of reminded him of parents with their new guppies that were learning how to swim. It was almost like once they came into the ocean, they became something of interest to the other mer.

“But they can’t breathe,” Keith said with worry, and okay, he had apparently seen people die in the ocean before, having managed to rescue Shiro from that fate. There was president for him to worry.

“Their scuba gear helps them,” Lance assured him as they swam around them. “And if something goes wrong, we’re here to help.”

Shiro was in their submarine, he didn’t actually dive himself, but they were down deep, and had discovered an old shipwreck.

Lance was positively giddy. He had always wanted to explore one, not just the purposely sunken ship by Arus that little guppies used to practice quick movements and stealth.  

He skirted around the edge of the ship and said, “This doesn’t look at all like their big ones, like Voltron.”

“This is pretty old,” Keith agreed, running his fingers along the edge of the ship. “Not many ships are made from wood these days.”

“Hey, maybe we can find a sunken ship and make it into a home!” Lance suddenly blurted out excitedly.

Keith blinked serveral times, staring at him with a raised eyebrow. “What?”

“What? Think about it! This isn’t overly far from Arus. I could still sneak home to see my family sometimes. I mean, I get why you don’t want to go there cause you’re right they’d probably be a bit freaked out and all, but it’d be a fun place to live until maybe one day it is okay to go there?” Lance said, speaking quickly while waving his arms around. He spun around, back facing Keith to motion to the ocean around them. “It’d be awesome!”

“Lance,” Keith said slowly. “I—I can’t.”

“Huh?” He turned back around, taken aback by the pained look in the other mer’s eyes. “Sure you can.”

“No, Lance. I—I—ugh.” Keith ran his hands through his inky hair, tugging at it lightly before looking at him sadly. “I—I’m not supposed to have a fated mate.”

“Uhh…” Lance didn’t quite know what to say to that.

Keith moved rapidly, hands flying around him as he tried to explain. “I mean, I know you’re mind. I know you are. I feel it all the time. I just…it’s why they told me I had to stay alone. Why I couldn’t be with them anymore. I can’t stay in one spot like a good mate would. I can’t. I have to be alone. They told me I did. It’s too dangerous.”

“What are you talking about? Who told you that? What’s too dangerous?” Lance wasn’t hurt by this revelation, he was just confused. A bit agitated too, but not at Keith. No, it was directed at whatever had told _his_ fated mate that.

Keith didn’t answer, he just looked down and crossed his arms in front of him.

“Listen, I don’t know who told you that, but they’re assholes and they’re wrong.” Lance reached out, putting his hands on Keith’s shoulders. “You know that, right?”

Keith finally met his eyes. “Maybe they were jerks about it, but they were right.” He backed out of Lance’s grasp.

Never before had Lance heard of a fated mate completely rejecting the one they were meant to be with. It was painful. A bitterness rose up in him, his defenses shooting up. “Fine. I can’t and won’t force you to do anything. But fine.”  
  
He swam by Keith, wanting to get away from him. It hurt so badly, to be rejected that way. Maybe that was why he stopped when Keith said, “But I want to.”

“What? You want to run away?” he snapped angrily.”

Keith was silent for a moment, and then, so quiet that Lance almost missed it, he said, “I want to stay with you so badly.”

Lance pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes before turning around to stare at him again. “I don’t understand what’s going on, but I want you to stay too.”

Turning to look at him, Keith looked ready to say something, like he was ready to tell Lance whatever it was that bothered him so much. The moment was ruined as Hunk suddenly swam over.

“Hey guys,” he said, his voice muffled by his equipment that was designed so mers could hear them underwater. “We need to ask you a favour and—oh—oh I interrupted something, didn’t I? Crap. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Lance said quickly, looking at him. “What is it?”

“We were actually wondering if you and Keith could help us with something that we found over there.” He motioned to the spot that was lit up by the sub’s spot lights.

It surprised Lance that Keith was the first one to go forward, though he supposed he was looking for a way to get away from their conversation for now. He swam over to where Pidge and Matt were, Hunk and Lance following close behind.

“You okay?” Hunk asked Lance. “You look a little down.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He smiled at him. “No worries buddy.”

They got to them just in time to see Keith push he way into a small opening. Lance blinked with surprise and went down to them. “What’s going on?”

“So we were looking at this ship, right? Then my light slipped and went into this cave and we can barely see in there, but it looks like there’s writing on the walls!” Pidge exclaimed excitedly.

“Keith glows and he’s smaller than you,” Matt added. “So we figured he was our best bet to see inside.” He then yelped with surprise as some of the boulders were pushed away, making the entrance big enough for them to get through with their gear.

Keith glared at him. “What? You think I’m weak because I’m smaller than Lance?”

“Uh…”

Pidge snorted and then peered into the cave. “Is it safe in there?”

“Our bubbles could cause something to collapse,” Hunk pointed out.

“It should be safe for one of you,” Keith assured them. “You wanted to look, right?”

“I’ll go,” Pidge said. “I’ll take pictures and everything.” Keith nodded and she followed him back into the cave, everyone else waiting around.

“We have to head back soon,” Shiro’s voice came through their comms a few minutes later so even Lance could hear. “Dive time’s almost up.”

“Just a little bit longer,” Pidge said as she popped back out, Keith following her. “It’s really cool. There’s a lot of old writing. I’d say it’s an ancient language that mers probably used if it’s this far down.” Her big eyes turend towards Keith. “You’ve travelled a lot, right? Have you seen anything like that before?”

Keith hesitated before saying, “I’ve seen that in underwater ruins before.”

Lance inched towards the opening curiously as the others started prepping to return to the sub and then head to the surface. He didn’t have to worry about anything like oxygen levels like they had to.

“You want to go see?” Keith asked him, startling him a bit.

“Yeah.” The two went into the cavern, and Lance was in awe of it all as it was lit up by Keith’s natural glow. “Wow. I’ve never seen this. Mers used to have a different language from humans?”

“Yeah,” Keith said with a nod. “You didn’t know? We started changing it to communicate with them, since they couldn’t understand us. I guess those of us that are still alive interacted with the English speakers more. My dad told me stories about that.” He smiled wistfully. “He liked to explore, to seek out the past.”

Lance wanted to reach out to touch him, but thought better of it. Instead, he said, “Why couldn’t we live in a place where people spoke Spanish? It sounds cool.”

Keith actually laughed at that, the sound lifting Lance’s spirits a little more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The one in which Keith doesn't understand humans, but these guys seem okay anyway.
> 
> It's funny, the note int he first chapter says don't expect updates like my other stories when in reality you should expect a crazy amount of updates very close together. I'm kind of tempted to just say 'eff it' and post everything in one go because S6 is coming. Hmm, we'll see. 
> 
> Sorry I didn't reply to comments this time. Sometimes I struggle to figure out what to say to short comments outside of thank you, which is repetitive and I can say here just as easily. So thank you very much for all your nice comments! You guys are awesome!


	7. Truth In Myths

“…It’s the same word, I’m positive,” Lotor was saying to Allura as Lance and Keith climbed up onto the back of the boat. “Just like in my mother’s research.”

“You’re sure? This is the symbol for Oriande?” Allura asked in awe, receiving a nod in return.

Lance groaned and rolled his eyes. It figured that the one cool thing they found was all about fairy tales.

Keith narrowed his eyes at the two of them and then asked, “Why do they care about a bunch of ruins?” Everyone stopped talking and stared directly at him with surprised looks. Keith inched closer to the side of the deck, clearly still a bit skittish when everyone’s attention was on him. “What?”

Lance groaned yet again, flopping dramatically onto Keith’s tail. “Not you too. Oriande doesn’t exist. It’s a sad but cool old story.”

“Lance, Oriande exists,” Keith said, raising an eyebrow as he looked down to him. “I mean, it’s nothing special. Not some mythical, magical place or anything, just a bunch of broken shrines and stuff.”

“You’ve been there before,” Lotor said suddenly, his focus entirely on Keith. Narti looked up from behind him, listening with interest.

Once again, Keith seemed wary. He eyed them for a moment, as if weighing the pros and cons of actually answering their question. He eventually shrugged and said, “Yes.”

Almost instantly, Lotor perked up, looking more than interested. Coran stared at him for a moment before saying, “It’s not a part of our current mission.”

“Perhaps not, but it could be a huge archeological discovery,” Lotor pointed out. He glanced towards Allura. “There could be untold history of mer kind there.” His eyes shot towards Lance. “Surely you’d be interested in that?”

Lance made a noise, still leaning on Keith’s tail. He looked up at the other mer, searching him for something as the humans started talking excitedly. “It’s really there?

“Yeah.” Slowly, Keith’s fingers rose, gently running his fingers through Lance’s hair. “I’ve seen them before. Just ruins though. Nothing magical like the stories say.”

“But you know the stories too,” Lance pointed out.

“Keith,” Shiro spoke up suddenly, drawing the attention of both mers. “Do you think you could give us the coordinates to Oriande?”

Keith stared at him, and then looked at Lance. At first, Lance thought he was just double checking if he should tell them, but then it hit him what was wrong. Keith had such a particular face, confused and fascinated. He tried to hide a smile as Keith said, “What’s a…coordinates?”

Shiro blinked and then asked, “Uh…can you point it out on a map?”

Keith tilted his head, and it was honestly the most adorable thing ever. It kind of surprised him that Keith travelled without a map, but he supposed if he was alone he’d just wander too. Lance was a bit jealous of just how intuitive Keith was with direction, always knowing where he wanted to go and how to get there.

Lance had little doubt that, if he wanted to, Keith could lead them to Oriande.

“Can you lead us there?” Allura asked bluntly, her eyes alight with interest, her hands clasped together in front of her.

Keith looked at her with searching eyes. He then glanced around from one face the next before turning his attention down to Lance. “Do _you_ want to go?”

Something fluttered inside of Lance as he instantly understood. Despite a few bonding moments, Keith didn’t know these people. How could he decide to trust them entirely? He _did_ know Lance though.

Despite his seeming reluctance to accept the fact that they were fated mates, Keith did seem to trust him. Seemed to genuinely like being around him, despite the moodiness that sometimes hit him.

Lance realized that he had a choice to make. Mers were cautious about sharing their history, their lives with humans when it was impossible for them to go into cities and observe them the same way. It was terribly one-sided, and humans are arrogant as it is. He wanted to go look, and he was sure that Keith would take him to Oriande alone if he wanted to go, but right now he was letting Lance decide if they wanted to take the others with them.

While he didn’t like Lotor was and indifferent to Narti, Lance trusted his friends.

“I mean, I never believed it was real, but if it is, that’d be really cool. I’ve always wanted to explore, you know?” Keith stared at him. Right. He had to be a little blunt. “Yeah. I want to go.”

“Okay.” Keith nodded his head, still staring at him and not humans on board that suddenly looked very excited. “I’ll take you there.”

…

Allura impulsively wanted to start out on their journey right away. Shiro and Coran both stepped in to be the voice of reasons, pointed out that they might need supplies because Keith wasn’t able to tell them exactly how long it would take them.

They wouldn’t be leaving for a couple days.

It was strange staring at Arus from the outside. It was like a lit beacon in the darkness of the ocean.

Keith floated beside him, staring in awe. “I’ve never seen so many mer living together like this. Each place has a mer in it?”

“No.” Lance snickered, resting his arm along Keith’s shoulders. “It has whole family pods in them.” He wanted to take Keith there. Wanted to bring him to his family and introduce them, to show him the market, the school, and everything else.

The thing is, Lance had left. He had broken the law. He would absolutely be arrested and taken to the dungeons, and that wouldn’t do any of them any good. Honestly, he wouldn’t fare well in jail.

Given the suspicion of the open ocean, Lance severely doubted that Keith would be welcome. At the very least, everyone would look at him with suspicion. At worse, they would arrest him, and if Lance wasn’t meant for jail, neither was Keith.

Actually, he learned very quickly that, though Keith looked almost delicate, especially in comparison to Lance’s sturdy form, he was an absolutely vicious fighter. He would probably end up stabbing a guard and getting away.

Instead, Keith used his amazing navigation skills to locate a cavern not far from Arus. They could still see the glow from the city from where they were.

Lance sighed as he stared at it. It was strange. For so long he had wanted to escape from Arus, and now he wanted to go back. Not to stay though. No, he hadn’t scratched the itch to explore the oceans yet. He just wanted to see his family again, to let them know that he was okay.

“Go see them,” Keith said to him, while sitting on a rock, staring out over Arus.

“I’ll get arrested.”  
  
“Only if you get caught,” he pointed out. “And I’d break you out.”

Lance cooed a bit at that, fluttering his eyes. “My knight in shining armour?”

“…How does a time of day wear armour? And if it was night, how would it shine?” Keith narrowed his eyes and tilted his head.

Lance snorted, unable to hide the swell of adoration that rose up within him. This was his fated mate, ridiculous, clueless, oblivious, and awkward at times. Already he knew he wouldn’t change him.

“You know what?” Lance said, encouraged by Keith words. “I think I’m going to do it. I’m going to sneak back home so they know I’m okay and hope that they don’t turn me over to the authorities.” He leaned closer to the other mer, reaching out and running his hand along the mark on his face. “You won’t leave, right? You’ll be here when I come back?”

Keith tensed at first before relaxing a bit. He nodded his head. “I’ll be here.”

Lance smiled brightly, and without thinking, he pressed his lips to Keith’s forehead. Realizing what he had done, he laughed and said, “I’ll be back later!” Then he quickly swam off.

Of course he noticed the dark red flush that overtook Keith’s skin, and the soft look in his eyes. It was really encouraging.

…

Nervousness overtook Lance as he peered into the kitchen window, watching his mother cut up some fish and wrap it up in only the best seaweed. Her wraps were honestly amazing. No one else quite made the right mix of fish like her.

Normally when his mother was cooking, she was humming and smiling. Now her movements seemed almost sluggish and sad, making something strike at Lance’s heart painfully. He moved up a little more and said, “Mom?”

She jumped and spun around, her blue eyes going wide as she stared at him. “Lance?”

He nodded his head and quickly swam in. His mother laughed loudly, embracing him tightly, practically wrapping him in her tail like he was a little guppy.

Maybe it was his mother’s laughter, or maybe he had spent more time wrapped up in her arms than he realized, because soon the rest of his family was there as well, surrounding him with large smiles.

“We were so worried,” his mother said, pressing her hands to his cheek. “Where were you hiding this entire time?”

Lance shifted slightly and said. “I left.”

She dropped her hands and stared at him with furrowed brows.

“You went beyond the Drop-Off?” Luis asked suddenly, sounding both surprised and interested.

“Yeah,” Lance answered sheepishly, his eyes darting to Marco.

Marco was a guard, and a high ranking one at that. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “You know I should technically arrest you for that, right?”

Veronica sighed and said, “Shush. You’ll do no such thing.” She turned back to her youngest brother and smiled. “It’s good to see you again. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Yes,” his father, a man of few words, finally spoke up. “It’s quite amazing that you survived out there.”

Deciding not to take those words to heart, Lance shrugged them off like it was nothing. “Yeah, it’s…it’s crazy out there. There are so many animals that are different from here and some people that are nice, some that aren’t, and there are random islands with no people!”

His mother hummed, non-too impressed. “Well, you’re home now, and that’s all that matters.” She looked at Marco thoughtfully.  “We’ll have to make up a story…”

Lance’s heart tugged painfully. As much as he didn’t want his mother and family to worry, he was also drawn to the freedom of exploring the ocean, to the mer that he could explore it with. “I’m not staying.”

Everyone froze and stared at him in shock.

“What?” his mother asked, her voice dropping dangerously. It made Marco, Veronica, and Luis cringe, but Lance managed to keep his own reaction under control. He was not going to appear week in front of her. Not with this.

“I’m leaving, because I met my fated mate.”

“You what now?” Luis asked. He had been one of the worst to tease Lance about that in the past.

Lance couldn’t help but feel almost smug. He eyed his brother for a moment before saying, “I was right. We’re not the only mers out there, though Keith does thinks that this is the biggest place.”

“Keith?” Veronica repeated, as if testing the word on her lips and not knowing what to think of it.

“My fated mate,” Lance said with a nod. “He didn’t come with me because we figured that he’d draw too much attention. Also he’s a bit weird with people – been alone for a very long time.” He pictured Keith in his mind and smiled. “He’s amazing, honestly. Unlike anyone here.” He could see how skeptical they were, and blurted out, “Want to meet him?”

“Meet him?” his mother asked.

“Yeah. By the Drop-Off. I can go and get him.” His eyes glanced towards Marco. “And you’ll be there to make sure no one else swims off, if that helps.”

His family looked at one another, and he waited with baited breath for them to come to a decision.

…

“Keith!” The other mer perked up from where he had been lounging at the edge of the cavern that they were going to stay in. Lance swam down to him, grabbed his hands, and swung him around happily.

Keith laughed, which only added to his good mood.

“I’m glad you’re still here,” Lance said, before wincing. He saw Keith tilt his head, and rushed to explain, “I guess I’m a bit scared that you’ll just leave? Sorry.” It wasn’t a very nice thing to think about, because a part of him had believed that Keith would just up and leave, though he hadn’t in the time they were together. He had loads of opportunities to, and was still with him.

“…It’s okay,” Keith decided, squeezing Lance’s handles. “Is your family okay?”

“Yeah,” Lance perked up at the thought of them. “So, funny thing, they, uh, would actually like to meet you.”

Keith blinked slowly and said, “Really?” He sounded so genuinely surprised that someone wanted to see _him_ that it made something twist inside of Lance in a bad way.

“Yeah,” he answered, nodding his head. “They’re waiting by the Drop-Off right now, actually. Neither gave my mother a heart attack when I swam off I think.” He stared at him with big, guppy eyes. “You’ll come, right?”

“Okay,” Keith said after a moment of thought, once again squeezing Lance’s hands.

Lance felt like an inflated pufferfish at his answer. He smiled broadly and said, “Let’s go.” He also couldn’t help but be happy that Keith insisted on holding his hand, though he figured it was more because he was nervous than anything else.

He squeezed the other mer’s hand, a silent message that he would be with him through this.

They noticed Lance’s family before the family noticed them. Keith stared at them in awe and said, “They’re all amazing. I haven’t seen this many mers together in a long time. They’re all your family?”

Lance paused. “Yeah. Those two there are my mother and father. The older ones are my grandparents. That’s my brother, Marco, and his mate, Camilia. That’s my sister, Veronica, and her guppies, Gavin and Aleja. That one there is my brother, Luis, and his mate, Clara.”

Keith muttered under his breath and nodded his head. They got closer, and finally, Lance’s family noticed them. Then again, Lance mused, it was kind of hard not to notice Keith as the light began to wane, with his glowing purple lines (what Matt called bioluminescence). Seriously, how could he be safe on his own when predators could see him so easily?

“Oh wow!” Aleja gasped, swimming forward before anyone could stop her. She stared at Keith with wide eyes. “You’re so pretty.”

“Uh, thank you?” Keith replied, and Lance had to wonder when the last time he interacted with young mers was.

He couldn’t help but preen a little bit as he saw the awe on the faces of most of his family members. They had clearly thought he was either lying, or they just weren’t expecting Keith to be, well, like he was. Probably a mix of both.

They got closer, and Gavin swam forward beside his sister. “How do you glow? Why are you so pale? You kind of remind me of a lionfish do you have poison barbs? Are you really Uncle Lance’s fated mate? Where are you from? Where’s your family? Whe—“

“Woah, calm down, Buddy,” Lance said with a laugh, putting his hands on his nephew’s shoulders.

“They’re good questions though,” Luis said as he swam around the two of them. His eyes slid up and down Keith’s form and he leaned in closer. “Are you _sure_ you’re _Lance’s_ fated mate? You’re way too good looking for him.” Clara smacked him with her tail, causing him to yelp. “Sorry, sorry. Point still stands.”

Keith looked at Luis, clearly unsure about how he should respond. His attention was quickly snatched back by Gavin, who was leaning close to peer at his glowing speckles and stripes. The little mer looked up at him, and Keith said, “I look like this because I grew up in a place that’s really deep, and really dark. And I am kind of like a lionfish, because I _do_ have barbs if I need them. On my back and in my knuckles.”

“Wow,” Gavin muttered, his eyes wide as he looked at Keith’s hands. “Can I see them?”

“Uh…” Keith looked up at Lance helplessly.

“That’s enough, Gavin,” Veronica said, reaching out and pulling her son back a bit. Lance could tell that she wasn’t nervous though, otherwise she would be twitchy and have her guppies behind them. That was a good thing.

That seemed to prompt something within the rest of Lance’s family. He watched as they tentatively introduced themselves to Keith, feeling something warm well up within him. His grandparents were wary, but that didn’t surprise him. They were old and lived with the belief that beyond the Drop-Off was a bad thing for much longer than anyone else. Lance’s father kept his arms crossed and was stony, and Marco looked downright suspicious, eyeing Keith as if he was a great white that had swam too close to them.

“What do you want here?” Marco asked, narrowing his eyes slightly.

Keith leaned away from him a bit, shoulders tensing. “To meet you?”

Marco’s eyes narrowed, apparently not liking that response. Lance quickly moved to Keith’s side, glaring at his older brother. “Knock it off, Marco. He’s here because I asked him to come, not to do anything bad.”

“Do you _really_ know that, Lance?”

The two of them started arguing, and Keith drifted away slightly. Lance was only half listening to Marco, focusing partially on the fact that his mother had snuck up on Keith.

“Lance was always my special guppy,” she said, prompting his face to go red. Marco look it as a sign of aggression. “He had dreams bigger than this city could hold. I always knew he was going to try and go. That there was something he needed out there.” She smiled at Keith. “Maybe that was you.”

Keith definitely looked taken back, though a small smile did appear on his face. He glanced over at Lance briefly before looking back to his mother. “He is special, more than he knows.”

Oh. Lance was pretty sure that he wasn’t supposed to hear that.

“You’ll take care of him, won’t you?” his mother asked Keith.

“Yeah,” Keith answered after a moment. “Yeah, I’ll try.”

That warm feeling came back, and Lance couldn’t help but smile. Maybe Marco didn’t like Keith, but that was okay. His mother liked him, and that was what really mattered when it came to his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw some leaks from episode one and have come to the conclusion that death is imminent because THAT HAPPENED IN EPISODE ONE. ONE. Holy mother of fuck. I don't understand how we're going to survive to episode seven.
> 
> Uh, if you leave a comment though please don't put ANY spoilers at all in it. I'm officially avoiding all of my social media (outside of here cause this counts in a sense). 
> 
> So question: This story is done. Would you guys be more interested in me uploading it all at once (aka later today/tonight before S6 comes out), or posting a chapter a day? I'm not quite sure which way I want to go yet. I MAY post another chapter later anyway because this one was shorter than normal, but we'll see.


	8. Across The Sea

“What,” Keith asked, twisting a shiny object around in his hand, “is this?” His face was twisted into one of distaste as he stared at a tiny screen with bands on either side of it.

“It’s a tracker,” Allura said happily. She was sitting down beside Keith at the stern of the boat, fixed up so that the mers could easily climb up and sit while also keeping their tales in the water.

Allura held up her hand. “It goes around your wrist like this.” She closed the clasp and showed him. “This way, we can find you and you don’t have to keep doubling back to check in on us.” She peeled it off. “You can take if off if it bothers you, but please don’t lose it.”

“Oh,” Keith didn’t look too impressed with it. “Okay.” He held out his arm, and she quickly strapped it on before he could change his mind. Keith shook his wrist.

“Comfy?” Lance asked him, elbows on the boat while he lounged in the water, happy to not be swimming for once. It was nice to be lazy sometimes.

“I was kind of hoping you would say no to that,” Pidge admitted from where she sat on the other side of Keith, double checking to make sure the tracker was working. She smiled at him teasingly. “That way we could tag you like a fish.” She laughed loudly as Keith glared and splashed her.

“It’s kind of ugly,” Lance admitted as he eyed the tracker.

“It’s just odd,” Keith said, poking at it. He sighed, apparently accepting his fate, and looked at Lance. “Want to hunt while we lead them?”

Lance perked up at that. “Sure!” He could never turn down a good hunt, especially not with Keith, who always seemed to be in awe when watching him once they got beyond the whole ‘we need to take this seriously vs. chill and have some fun’ thing. Lance decided to do things Keith’s way for now, and he didn’t regret it at all. Clearly being a good hunter mattered to the other mer, and he seemed impressed with Lance, so honestly that was a huge win. He’d trade goofing off with that look of admiration Keith sent him any day.

“Bring us back some if you catch anything good!” Pidge cried out as they both slid back into the water.

“Oh man,” Lance said, his stomach growling hungrily. “Cooked fish is weird, but, like, Hunk does amazing things to it, so it’s bearable compared to everyone else’s. People take the flavour right out of everything. Anyway, let’s get some to bring back to them so you can try it too.”

Keith tilted his head slightly, a small smile appearing on his face. “Sure.”

Honestly, he needed to stop smiling, it was doing things to Lance that made him want to do something stupid to impress the other mer. 

…

“This is a bad idea,” Keith said as he glanced up at Lance, who was scaling the ladder on the side of the ship. “Why don’t we just go up the stairs?”

“No it’s not, and this is more fun,” he replied with a wave of his hand. He used his powerful tail to launch himself over onto the lifeboat that was hanging there. Most boats had inflatable ones, but apparently Coran also liked having an old one around too. Lance liked it too, because it meant that he could be lazy and still travel.

He leaned over the edge and looked down. “See, easy.” He paused and they stared at one another. “Don’t tell me you’re _scared_.”

Keith’s eyes narrowed at the challenging, and he grabbed the rungs of the ladder, pulling himself up, using his tail to keep him steady. Lance sat up, ready to help him if he missed, but Keith managed to propel himself into the lifeboat, and straight onto Lance.

“Oh wow, ow.” Lance groaned. Gravity generally wasn’t _this_ big a problem in water. Despite Keith being smaller than Lance, he was still _heavy_ when buoyancy wasn’t a thing. He looked up, meeting indigo eyes and a bright red face. “Well, hello to you too.”

Keith rolled off of Lance, causing the lifeboat to rock some. He looked around and asked, “Do you do this often?” They hadn’t once done this on their trip to Arus.

Lance shimmied a bit so that they were side by side and the boat was steady. “I’ve done it a few times when I knew they were staying close to Arus. Kind of a way to get around not going beyond the Drop-Off, you know?”

He couldn’t help but watch as Keith turned to look towards the sky, his eyes widening as the clouds moved away from where they had been covering the moon. With only the soft lights from the boat to light the area around them (and Keith’s natural glow), the stars in the sky were bright and visible.

“I’ve never looked at them like this,” Keith said, nodding towards the sky. “I’ve always wondered what they are. I mean, I know they’re stars, but I don’t really know anything about them. I don’t spend much time near the surface.”

Lance looked from him back up to the sky. “Shiro says that they’re the same as the sun, just really, really far away.”

“Wow,” Keith breathed out in awe. “That’s amazing.” He looked up at Lance. “You know so much about the surface and humans.”

Tilting his head slightly, Lance regarded him with curiosity. “Is that a good thing?”

“Yeah,” Keith answered eagerly. “It’s a great thing! You’re so smart and maybe I explored the oceans, but I don’t know much about the land or the people.”

Lance felt himself flushing. No one had ever called him smart like Keith had, so genuine and amazed. “Well, you know things about the ocean I don’t. So how about if I teach you about the land, you teach me about the sea.”

Keith thought for a moment before nodded his head. Lance’s heart leapt as he leaned close, resting his head on Lance’s chest, tail twisting around his to get comfortable. “Do you know anything about the stars?”

“Do I ever!” Lance threw one arm around his back, hand resting on his shoulder. “Okay, apparently people can see pictures in the stars and give them names and stories.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah!” Lance enthusiastically pointed out the couple constellations that he could remember, haven practically milked the others of all the information they had about stars in the past. What could he say, he absolutely loved them.

Not to mention it was nice, curling up with Keith and just talking and being together. By the time he was done, both of them were lightly dozing, not quite asleep yet.

“Hey, Keith?” Lance mumbled. It felt wrong to speak loudly for some reason. Keith hummed in response, and he kept going. “If Oriande is real, does that mean the Heart of the Sea is too?”

He shifted, looking up and him and blinking. “What makes you ask that?”

“Well,” Lance trailed off, tapping his fingers against the grey and purple scales on Keith’s shoulders, “I always thought it was a myth, but it turns out it’s real. So maybe the Heart of the Sea is something real too. Maybe it’s just a pretty, shiny treasure or something, kind of like Oriande is just a destroyed city. Right?”

Keith stared at him thoughtfully. “I guess that’s true. What would you do if it did exist?”

Lance thought for a moment. “Hide it.”

That answered must have surprised Keith, because he actually pushed himself up slightly to look at him better. “Hide it?”

He flushed a bit. “Well, maybe I’d see if it could be used to, like, clean up the oceans more, but then I’d hide it so no one else could use it. It wouldn’t be right.”

Keith stared for a few more moments, and once Lance gained the courage to look back, he realized that there was an almost awe-struck look marring his features. “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” Keith repeated, almost like he was in a trance. “Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just…” He trailed off, eyes suddenly darting up to the deck of the boat above them. He frowned slightly before leaning in close to Lance and whispering something to him before settling back down, curled up against him.

Keith fell asleep first, Lance staying up a little bit longer, stroking his shoulder and shifting closer to him, if that were at all possible with their tails twisted together as they were. He took a deep breath and then rested his head on top of the other mer’s. With Keith’s gentle breaths on his skin and the sway of the boat, Lance found himself falling into a peaceful sleep.

…

Pidge watched her brother with amusement. He was leaning precariously over the edge of the boat, Hunk holding onto his shirt to stop him from toppling into the water below. Sure, they had two mers with them, but she doubted they’d be that quick to go after Matt if he fell.

After all, he was snapping pictures of the two of them curled up together in the lifeboat.  Pidge had been more than a little surprised when she went to track Keith that morning, only to find him on the side of the ship. Then Matt pretty much had an aneurism.

“You’ve seen mers like this before,” she pointed out to him from where she sat, running information from some of their scanners through her powerful computer.

“I’ve seen them holding on to one another for reasons like in tides and stuff but not _this_. This is full-on cuddling,” he pointed out before looking over his shoulder. “Where’s Allura, she’d appreciate this.”

“Maybe one picture,” Hunk agreed. “But they haven’t even moved and you’ve taken about a hundred.”

“What are you doing?” Lance’s voice floated up from below. The three looked down at the clearly disgruntled mer, Keith still asleep on his chest.

“You two are adorable,” Hunk cooed at him.

“So, we theorized this before, but do mers have same sex partners?” Matt asked, leaning over to look down at him. “That’s a thing?”

Lance stared at him oddly before Keith shifted to stare at them. Apparently he hadn’t been asleep, only faking it. “What does that mean? Same sex partners?”

“Speaking on a biological level alone and not gender, you guys are both male,” Pidge pointed out. Poor Keith had really been out of the loop if he didn’t even know this. “Usually species need a biological male and a female to reproduce. Unless your asexual.”

“Oh! Mating and reproducing! You should have just said that.” Keith tilted his head. “I know most species are like that, but all mers are the same.”

“Don’t tell them that!” Lance cried out, putting his hand over Keith’s mouth.

Keith pushed him off, shifting so that he was sitting up in the lifeboat. “Why? I thought you trusted these guys.”

Lance blinked several times before sighing and flopping backwards. “You’re impossible.”

With a shrug, Keith looked back up at them and continued. “We’re biologically the same. Mated pairs choose who carries their offspring.”

That was something new they hadn’t known, judging from the way Matt was quickly jotting things down on a tablet. Hunk watched his friend for a moment before leaning on the edge of the deck and staring down. “So there’s no biological difference between male and female? It looks like it.”

Surprising them, Lance sighed and said, “No. Like Keith says, a mated pair decides who’s going to carry the guppy. What we call babies. If pairs can’t decide they...challenge one another. It’s like what you guys call a wrestling match I guess? The winner gets to pick what they want. It usually doesn’t come to that. That’s all I’m saying.”

“So why _do_ some of you look like human males and females if there’s no difference between the two?” Pidge asked curiously.

“Um,” Lance’s brow furrowed. “I think it’s actually a really old thing, if school taught it right.”

“Humans get distracted by what they think is attractive,” Keith explained with ease, confident in his answer. “So some Mers changed to appeal to human males, some to human females. It’s a change we kept over time and are born with spontaneously. Not that it matters. Is that what you meant be different sexes?”

“Wait, so you adapted to distract people?” Pidge asked, eyes widening with delight. “That’s _amazing_. Holy hell. Evolution at its finest. I’m glad you guys are in the ocean, we’d never stand a chance.”

Lance grinned at them, showing his sharp teeth off. Yeah, Pidge really was glad that the mers stayed in the ocean.

Matt suddenly perked up. “Hey, Allura! Check out the pictures I got!”

“Allura’s the Princess of Altea, right?” Keith asked Lance as they stared up at the humans from where they were sitting. Allura and Lotor had joined the others, leaving Shiro, Coran, and Narti out of sight. At Lance’s nod, he said, “So what’s Lotor?”

“Lotor is the Prince of Daizabaal or the King. Dunno. Don't really care,” Lance answered, not caring if anyone above could hear them. If Keith was going to share mer stuff with them, he was going to share human stuff with Keith.

“Okay, but why’s he _here_?”

“He’s Allura’s betrothed.” Keith blinked, that familiar, adorable look he got when he encountered something he didn’t understand on his face. “Their parents chose for them to be mates.”

“What?” Keith tilted his head back and looked up to where Allura was looking over at them curiously. “You guys _plan_ out your mates? Or someone picks for you?” He looked so lost that it was actually funny.

Matt suddenly got a sly smirk on his face. He clearly liked the fact that he could get more information out of Keith than Lance. “So, I get that mers don’t date or anything.  The running human theory is that you attract one another by your scale colours and patterns.”

“What?” the pale mer asked.

“I take it that’s wrong? That’s fine,” Matt said quickly, pulling out his tablet to make notes. “Lance, you mentioned something called fated mates once. What was that about?”

“Do people not know _anything_ about us?” Keith asked, casting a glance over at Lance.

“Nope.” Lance looked down at his tail with a scowl. “God, I’m glad that it’s not about scale colours and patterns. I’d get overlooked forever.”

“Aw, don’t think like that, Lance,” Hunk called down to him. “You’re perfect the way you are. I mean, your scales are all shiny and awesome in the sunlight.”

“He’s right,” Keith agreed without hesitation. Where his fins were more than impressive at night and in dark water, they looked positively dull in the sunlight without any sparkle or shine. “We talked about this before. You’re perfect for survival, and that’s what matters most. Nothing can hurt you if it can’t see you. You blend in. It’s a good thing. I stand out like a sore thumb in almost every environment.”

“You do glow,” Hunk pointed out.

“Back up, I’m curious too. What does fated mates mean?” Pidge asked, trying to keep them on tract.

“Magic binds mers to the ocean and each other. It's why a mer's vow or promise is so strong. Fated mates are…mates paired by fate I guess. All mers have them. You can tell who your fated mate is just by looking at them,” Keith explained without any hesitation. It was like listening to someone read from a textbook.

Lance groaned. “Seriously. We’re not supposed to share stuff like this. Mer rules. Stop talking.”

Keith stared at him blankly for a moment. “I do what I want.”

Lance spluttered, not quite sure how to respond to that at all.

“Wait a sec!” Hunk’s eyes went wide. “Are _you_ two fated mates?” He looked positively giddy about the idea.

“No,” was Lance’s immediate answer. Unfortunately, it came at the same time that Keith said yes. On one hand, that made something inside of him almost explode because Keith admitting that they were fated mates wasn’t common. On the other, he really had to choose now to accept it so easily?

“He said yes!” Pidge pointed out excitedly.

Lance sighed. “Okay, yes, we are. I just like to keep some things a mystery!”

“Drama queen,” Pidge muttered.

“Wait,” Matt spoke up, his eyes going wide. “Does that mean you guys get to decide that one of you is going to like carry a guppy? How does that work exactly all the way? Can we document it?”

Keith looked completely mortified. He stared at Lance and said, “You were right, they shouldn’t know anything.” With that, he heaved himself over the edge of the lifeboat and dove into the water, not coming back up.

“Thanks for scaring him away, guys!” Lance called up to them sarcastically. “He’s twitchy enough as is!” He quickly followed Keith over the edge of the lifeboat, vanishing into the cold waters below.

Pidge snorted loudly when Shiro seemed to just appear beside Matt, smacking the back of his head.

“Ow! What?” Matt looked at him, shielding his head.

“You basically just asked to watch them have sex,” Pidge pointed out. “And I mean, Keith’s clearly flighty. That probably doesn’t help. Right, Hunk?”

Hunk on the other hand was staring down at the ocean with a thoughtful expression. He looked towards them and asked, “Do you think there’s a mermaid porn industry?”

Everyone, including Allura and Lotor, turned and stared at him.

“Hunk, why?” Shiro asked helplessly. He had come to see what was going on, Coran taking over for him at the controls briefly since they couldn’t exactly use the automated system this time around, and he was really regretting his decision.

Maybe he just needed take a nap.

…

Keith had booked it from the ship in record timing. It was amazing how fast he actually was. Lance managed to keep him in sight, but he was always a bit ahead. Finally though, he came to a stop and sighed, bubbles heading up to the surface.

“You okay?” Lance asked him, coming to a stop beside him. “Ignore them. That’s why I don’t tell them too much. Not just Arus laws, but because they will pry and pry some more. They mean well, but you know…” He trailed off and shrugged.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Keith looked up at him. “It was just…I’m not used to people prying, you know? I’m not used to…people.” He looked embarrassed by this.

“Well, I mean, that makes sense,” Lance assured him with a nod and a smile. That seemed to put him at ease, and the two of them continued swimming.

“So,” Lance said after a while. “Have you, you know, every though about having guppies before?” That was something that he had always wanted, and had hoped that his fated mate would agree on.

“I used to,” Keith admitted, almost sadly. “When I was younger.”

“What happened?”

Keith bit his lip with his sharp teeth, drawing the slightest amount of blood. “I was never supposed to meet you. Never supposed to meet my fated mate. It’s why I was alone, so it wouldn’t happen.” He snorted. “Looks like the ‘fated’ part decided otherwise.”

“Who told you this?” Lance wondered, brow furrowing.

“Kolivan. A few others.” He paused. "My mother...she didn't agree with him but it doesn't matter. It was a long time ago."

He had no idea who “Kolivan” was, but he instantly decided that he didn’t like him. He threw his arms out and said, “That’s stupid! You can do anything you want. If you don’t want a family or something for a super long time, hey that’s chill with me I wanna explore too. If it’s never, then that’s fine.”

Keith looked up at him almost shyly and said, “If I said yes, who would carry them? Guppies?”

Lance blinked. Well then. He hadn’t expected to get that far. “Uh, duke it out?”

“I’d win,” Keith pointed out smugly.

“What the hell? No. I would.” Lance swam around him. “I’m bigger than you. Probably stronger. And I know my claws and teeth are sharper.”

“Yeah, but…” Keith maneuvered close, basically wrapping himself around Lance. “I can control my poison so it can just knock you out. All I gotta do is get one little prick in.” He winked. “Fight smarter, not harder.” He quickly unravelled himself and kept swimming.

“Holy crow,” Lance choked out, his cheeks red as he shook his head. He surged after Keith, grabbing ahold of him and spinning them around.

“What are you doing?” Keith asked as he flailed, his tail and fins lashing out.

“Winning.”

Keith snorted and smacked him with his tail, a smiling on his face as the two wrestled in the water. The glowing mer eventually managed to twist around Lance so that he couldn’t move.

“I told you I’d win,” Keith said smugly.

“Yeah, yeah.” Lance pouted at him. He was about to ask something else when Keith suddenly pulled away from him, staring at the depths with interest. “What?”

“Shh,” he said, and squinted a bit. His eyes then went wide and he said, “They’re coming up again!”

“What now?” Lance looked down, making out some moving shapes below them. Some very large, moving shapes.

Being on the boats allowed Lance to see the ocean the way the others did, and he could see why so many people thought it was just vast and lifeless. They couldn’t be more wrong. Though vast, it was teeming with life, big and small. People on boats and ships were never too far from something beneath the waves.

That being said, Lance had lived a fairly sheltered life. Sure, he had seen some things with Keith, and he had heard stories from the others, but he had never seen something like this before. He had never been out far enough to see a massive blue whale come up from the depths, her baby (a very big baby) beside her.

“Hey, these are the guys you showed Coran before, right? I thought they’d be long gone!” He was still in awe at seeing creatures so big, remembering how surprised he was last time when Keith found them.

“There’s a lot of food here,” Keith said. The whale made a sound, and he darted forward, sitting on her whale like before and holding on. She cooed loudly, but didn’t seem bothered, so Lance tentatively went beside him.

“They’re beautiful,” Lance noted. “I didn’t tell you that last time.” He had been too busy stuttering.

“They are,” Keith agreed, running his hands over the whale’s skin almost sadly. “It’s too bad that humans killed so many of them. I mean, their numbers are getting a bit better but they never should have got so low in the first place.”

“Some people are really bad, but not at all of them. There are a lot of good people too,” Lance insisted.

“But you don’t trust them,” Keith said, twisting over so that he was on his back as the blue whale started moving closer to the surface. “Why else would you hide so much?”

“Well, the way we look at it back home, humans always want to know about us. They almost demand to know things, to watch us and to…categorize us. We’re just as intelligent as them, our environment and resources are very different, but they don’t see it that way. We can’t go up into their world and watch them – write books about them. So we don’t tell them things until they share stuff with us too.” He sighed. “It’s something that’s been drilled into my head since I was a guppy. Be wary of the humans. I ended up connecting more with them than other mers though.”

Keith reached out, putting his hand on top of Lance’s and squeezing gently. “I get it. Sorry. I’ll double check with you first if it’s very important to you, okay?”

“Thank you,” Lance answered with a smile. It actually _didn’t_ matter to him all that much, not truly, but it was good to know that Keith respected him enough to do that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay here we go I am going to update the last of this story in one go, that way I can immediately dive into whatever pops into my mind after watching S6. Hold on to your butts. Also, sorry for any typos because you're basically getting my first draft of this.


	9. Oriande

Allura loved traveling the seas, and was so glad that her father was so open to her exploration and studies. It truly meant at a lot to her, and she felt like she could practically live on Voltron.

There was something different about this trip though. She was used to anticipation, but she was borderline antsy now. Keith’s tracker had stopped moving a while ago, and they were quickly approaching that area, the boat slowing down. Either something happened to the tracker, or he was waiting for them to catch up.

The anticipation was killing her as Shiro finally brought them to a stop. They waited for a moment before hearing the telltale splashing of Keith and Lance coming to the surface and making their way to the ship.

“We’re here,” Keith said simply, and her breath caught in her throat.

“You’re sure?” Lotor asked from somewhere behind her. It didn’t matter where she was, her attention was entirely on the two mers as Lance came up beside Keith.

Keith narrowed his eyes at Lotor, before glancing at Lance, who shrugged. Allura didn’t quite know where this silent communication had come from, but it seemed to be good enough for the strange mer, who nodded his head.

“Excellent,” Lotor said, straightening his shoulders as he looked at Allura. “Shall we prep the sub?”

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Keith, Lance. We’ll be down in the water soon,” Allura assured them, going to gather the rest of their small crew. She really should look into getting more people to help run the ship, but they made it work with their small numbers. They all trusted one another, and that’s what was important.

Shiro looked up at her as she walked into the cabin and said, “We’re here. Can you grab the others start prepping the sub?”

“Of course!” he said, a shine of excitement in his eyes.

Coran, who had been looking at the readings from some of their instruments, smile warmly as he watched the young man go before turning his attention to Allura. “They’ve been talking non-stop about this since we left port.”

“It is exciting,” Allura agreed. “To think that we can prove that such an old legend has basis in reality – an underwater city!”

“Should I assume you’re going with them?” Coran asked her, periwinkle eyes narrowing slightly.

“I’ve always wanted to know about the world of the mers,” Allura admitted. “Though they’re so closed off. Keith proves that the ones in Arus aren’t alone. There are others out there. Maybe, perhaps, if I could bring a piece of the history they lost back to them, they might be a little more open to us. This isn’t something that I want to leave for my team alone.”

Coran nodded his head. “If that’s what you want, Princess Allura, I will stay up here and monitor everything.”

“Thank you.” She smiled at him warmly. “I believe Narti will probably be staying as well.”

“It would probably be best,” Coran agreed. “Don’t worry, we’ll be able to handle everything up here, and if anything goes wrong, let us know.”

Allura took a deep breath and nodded her head, excitement coursing through her veins. She couldn’t wait to get beneath the waves.

…

Pidge was positively shaking with excitement as she checked out the last of their equipment. Sure, she was as pumped as anyone to potentially be exploring mer ruins from centuries ago, but honestly, that wasn’t really her thing.

No, she was more excited about using the new equipment that they had gotten. Yes, she tested a bit on the way there, but this would be the real show, the real test.

The only disappointment was that they really shouldn’t get out of the submarine. Based on the reading of how deep Keith had gone (from the tracker on his wrist), the pressure would be too much for them to be exposed to for long. Should something happen to the submarine though, their suits would allow them to get out and very slowly make their way back up to the surface.

Besides, this was just their first dive. They planned on giving Keith and Lance cameras and equipment on the next one. It’d be fun to see what the mers did with that.

“You look like you’re about to be sick,” Matt noted as he came into the main part of the sub. He took a seat, strapping himself in.

“I’m excited! All of my beautiful tech is going to be put to use!”

“Didn’t Hunk actually build them?”

She blinked, as if surprised that he asked at all. “Of course. They’re Team Punk inventions. I would never deny that. Doesn’t mean I’m any less excited!”

Matt laughed as Hunk rushed into the cabin and said, “Hell yeah we get to text our inventions!”

Pidge jumped up and gave him a perfectly-timed high-five before they both scrambled into their seats. Matt just shook his head, a wide smile on his face.

Soon, Shiro, Allura, and Lotor were in as well, sitting down in the seats assigned to them as Shiro went through the process of launching Black, their primary submarine. They had little ROVs that they called Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green, and would hopefully be launching some of those to look at the runes in a future dive.

They sunk down and down into the deep depths, the sunlight rapidly fading from view as blues turned darker and darker until there was only black.

Hunk wasn’t sure about everyone else, but this part always made him nervous no matter how many times he went under. Being so far under water was like being in space, or on an alien planet.

Suddenly it wasn’t pitch black anymore, but Shiro had yet to turn on the lights, waiting to get to a certain depth. Instead, the glow was from Keith’s bright scales.

They had seen them before, but it was still amazing to see that distinctive glow in the bitch black of the ocean. Lance came into view, only visible due to his proximity to Keith, both of them talking to one another, motioning towards things. Lance pointed at something and Keith looked at it and shook his head.

“I think they’re looking at a shark,” Pidge said, looking at the readings from her station. “There’s actually quite a bit of life around here.”

“I imagine no colony of mer would make their home in a place barren of food,” Lotor said thoughtfully. “This must have becoming scavenging grounds for many things over the years. It will most likely be overrun by sea life.”

“Possibly,” Allura agreed, looking over at him. “Though there’s always the chance it won’t be. All mers have an innate sense of magic to them. They don’t consciously use it like I do, for the most part, rather it drums through them and is used unconsciously. It’s why nothing is more binding than a true mer’s vow. They have to uphold that vow or face consequences.” She realized that everyone was staring at her curiously. “Sometimes magic remains even when those who use it are gone. That might possibly be the case of Oriande, if there is some form of truth to the myth.”

“I don’t know which one would be more interesting,” Matt admitted. “Biology is my thing, so seeing life there would be amazing, but there’s something about knowing magic may have impacted something so strongly that it lasts thousands of year later that’s really fascinating.”

“Well, we’ll know soon,” Hunk said, looking up from the screens that he was monitoring. “We’re coming up on it fast.”

“Alright, let’s get out of power saving mode,” Shiro ordered, and everyone went to work. The large lights on the outside of the ship lit up, causing Lance to flinch outside and glare at them. He was mumbling something, but they couldn’t hear what it was. It didn’t really matter though, because Keith nudged him and pointed at something.

Lance looked down, eyes going wide, and the two mer quickly swam downwards. Shiro angled them so that they could see better.

At first, there was nothing but things floating in the water in front of them, though they could see Keith’s glow in the distance, then, as their lights were able to reflect off of the stone beneath the water, massive structures came into view.

When Keith told them that there were runes, they all hypothesized that it meant that there were a couple buildings left, maybe a shrine or two. Though definitely destroyed and worn away from years of currents brushing against it, there was clearly a once sprawling city before them.

“That’s Oriande?” Hunk asked, leaning back to see outside. “Woah.”

“You were right,” Lotor admitted, glancing over at Allura. “It is barren. There must have been powerful magic here at some point.”

“Yes,” she agreed in awe. It was the only thing that made sense, since the ocean would have claimed the runes long ago. Though, to be fair, all of their knowledge was based on legends, and they didn’t actually know how long ago this city existed. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“It truly is,” Lotor said. “There must be so much history here.”

Shiro moved the vessel closer to the runes, but not enough where there was any worry about them damaging anything. This first dive was simply to gain a primary observation. It would have been fine for only two or three of them to come down, but they were all curious. The more in-depth study would begin on the second dive.

He had to admit, though he wasn’t a huge history buff by any means, this place was astounding.

“It’s awesome and all, but it kind of gives me the willies,” Hunk admitted, breaking the silence.

Matt snorted and reached over, patting his shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I’m sure the mer-ghosts won’t follow you home.”

“Mer-ghosts?” Hunk squeaked.

“There’s no such thing as mer-ghosts,” Shiro assured him.

“Shiro’s right,” Pidge agreed, eyes flashing deviously. “However, there are documented sightings of ghosts that happen to be mers. Still just a ghost though.”

“Pidge!” Hunk squawked as Matt laughed loudly. “Some friends you are.”

“Alright, alright,” Shiro spoke up again, shaking his head. “Let’s get those primary scans and readings. Then you can goof off later.”

Everyone quickly got back to what they were supposed to be doing to make the mission run smoother, and Shiro turned his attention back to the city in front of him. He wasn’t going to say it out loud, but Hunk was right. There really was something eerie about this place.

…

It always amused Lance that they could faintly hear the discussions that his human friends in the submarine, but the people couldn’t hear them. It led to some pretty amazing eavesdropping moments on his part, learning things he was sure no one wanted him to know. Eventually they became aware of it but no one seemed to particular care.

He wasn’t really paying attention to them now though, instead, his eyes were locked onto the structures in front of him. There were rows of what had once been columns, shrines, homes and buildings, all crushed and eroded over time. He could still easily tell what it had once been though.

Something tugged at his heart as he stared at the faded inscriptions on some of the pillars. His fingers brushed over it, and he said, “I can’t believe Oriande really exists.” He knew Keith had come closer, because the area around him lit up with purple light, allowing him to see things easier. “It’s so weird being here.”

Keith nodded his head. “It is. This was where merkind was said to originate from, you know?”

“Wait, what?” Lance looked over at him. “The story I know is about how the Heart of the Sea was hidden here, and then the witch tried to steal it. Oriande was destroyed, the heart being lost in the ruins.”

“I’ve heard that too,” Keith said, “but I also heard that this was where the first mers lived, spreading across the oceans from here. It’s _why_ the Heart of the Sea was originally brought here before it was taken away.”

“Woah,” he breathed out. Honestly, Lance had been a little bit underwhelmed too, because it was amazing, but Oriande was in myths and legends, and surely it couldn’t _just_ be a pile or ruins with some faded runes in it like Keith had said. The other mer hadn’t lied at all though.

Learning that there may have been something special to this place after all was enough to spark his interest even more.

Keith bit his lip before going up to one of the fallen pillars. “The story also says that this is where fated mates originated from too.”

“What? Really? Who has been telling you stories, and can I bring them home? The Arus teachers need better storytellers,” Lance said, twisting around Keith slightly. “Tell me about that one.”

“The two that stopped the witch. When the first sacrificed themselves, the grief for the other was strong and wanted them back. So the power of the heart made it so that their souls, when reborn, would always be together. It somehow spread to all mers.”

“But wouldn’t that make the story of the Heart of the Sea, of the witch, true too? You said this place was just a normal place.”

“It is,” Keith assured him. “I never said none of that stuff didn’t happen though.”

“Jeez. I’m starting to think that you were alive then.” Lance eyed him skeptically. “Are you about to tell me that you have been alive since this place existed and that I’m the reincarnation of your fated mate?”

Keith laughed heartedly. “No. Definitely not. That’d be a great story though.” He leaned closer to Lance. “I just grew up learning more stories than you.”

Before Lance could reply, the tracker around Keith’s wrist started to peep. They both jumped, looking down at the device as Keith brought it up to his face and stared at it with confusion. “Is something wrong with this?”

“I think it might be a signal?” Lance looked up at the submarine hovering above them. It had made several passes over them while they explored the runes up close. “Come on, lets go see what they want.”

Keith nodded, following him up towards the vessel. When they got close enough to see everyone, Shiro smiled and hit a couple buttons inside. “Can you hear me better?” The voice came out crystal clear in the water. It was certainly better than trying to make out what their muffled words said.

“Loud and clear!” Lance said happily.

“Coran sent a message that got a bit scrambled, but it looks like there might be a storm coming. We were tracking one but thought it was going to head in the other direction. It must have made a sudden turn.”

“You weren’t down here for long,” Keith pointed out.

Allura leaned closer to Shiro so that she could speak into the mic that was there, and Lance tried not to snicker when he saw the man’s face turn pink. “Yes, but we’ll be coming back down on other dives. I was wondering if, perhaps, you two could gather a couple samples and bring them up? Just of the stone and rock, so we can look at it?”

“Sure,” Lance answered with a nod and a thumbs up. He flipped over and looked at the other mer. “Race you!” He took off before Keith could say anything.

“Cheater!” He yelled a couple seconds later, no doubt rushing after him. Lance laughed loudly at that.

Lance hid behind a broken pillar, though he honestly wasn’t really trying that hard. In fact, the race left his mind when he saw some interesting stones on the ground. They were completely smooth, yet almost clear like gemstones. “Hey, Keith! I bet I could make you an awesome necklace with these.”

Keith was definitely taken back at first, but then a surprisingly sly smile appeared on his face. He raised an eyebrow and swam closer. “I don’t know, I think they’d really bring out the colour of your eyes.” He took one and held it up beside Lance’s face. “Yup, they’re perfect.” There wasn’t anything suggestive about what he said, it was the way he said it that made Lance’s face turn bright red.

“You can’t just say that!” he cried out.

“You gonna stop me?”

Lance launched himself at Keith, who laughed and zipped away. Somehow, this led to the two of them zooming around the runes in a silly game of tag, completely forgetting about the fact that they were supposed to be looking for things for the others.

Lance managed to pitch himself around a corner, grabbing Keith around his waist and swung him around. They both laughed loudly, leaning on to one another.

“We should probably get a couple rocks and get them back to the others,” Keith muttered, leaning back just enough so that he could see Lance, their noses brushing against one another.

He hummed lightly and said, “Yeah.” He didn’t move away from him though, simply kept staring into his eyes. They really reminded Lance of the night sky. His heart beat loudly as he leaned forward, carefully brushing his lips against Keith. He felt Keith respond almost instantly, gentling pressing back against him.

It was a short, sweet kiss that was a simple press of their lips, but it meant everything to Lance, because Keith wasn’t pushing him away. A part of him wondered what it was that made him change his mind from his ‘I can’t’ mentality, but he decided to let it go. He didn’t want to push his luck.

Lance smiled warmly at him, and Keith started to smile back, leaning forward and resting his head against his shoulder, arms wrapping around his waist tightly. The shark-like mer hugged him back, feeling like everything in the world was finally right.


	10. The Witch

A part of Lance honestly wanted to suggest that they just stay there in Oriadne for the rest of time. It was peaceful and there was no one there to bother or judge them. At the same time though, it was also dark and would no doubt become desolate. Already, he wanted to see the upper layers of the ocean again and to take in the sunlight (even though there was a storm coming up above and he wouldn’t see the sun for a bit – but at least there’d be light other than Keith).

Almost reluctantly, they each picked up a few samples to bring back to the others, and started their ascent to the surface.

They were about half way there when Keith paused, narrowing his eyes as he stared up.

“What’s wrong?” Lance asked him curiously.

“There’s no storm,” Keith said slowly, “but there definitly is _something_ up there.”

Lance wanted to ask how he knew that, but remembered what Keith had told him the other night when they were resting in the lifeboat. That might have something to do with it, so he decided to let it go. A little more cautiously, the two kept swimming upwards. Once they were close enough, they could make out the shape of a second ship beside Voltron, oddly close to it.

Lance started to swim up a little faster, when Keith suddenly grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the way just in time before a large shark streaked by.

“Where did he come from?” Lance asked, a bit terrified and perplexed.

“Do you smell that?” Keith asked, a bit horrified.

Closing his eyes and concentrating, Lance caught onto the bitter, iron-tint to the water. His eyes snapped open. “Blood. Why is there blood?”

“I think that’s the only one here now, but there are a lot of other predators around, and it’s getting later, so there’ll be more. Not to mention that big guy is coming back too. We shouldn’t stay here long.” It was clear from his tone of voice that he was wary.

Lance nodded his head, but then looked up as something was thrown into the water. His heart dropped when he recognized the small, struggling form, held on by a rope.

“Pidge!” he yelled, dropping the rocks that he had been holding, swimming up to her.

“Wait!” Keith called out, but he ignored him, not noticing that the other mer had lunged out to stop the same sharp from biting him again.

Pidge twisted around as Lance approached her, eyes widening with panic as she shook her head wildly. Before Lance could ask her what was going on, a next sprang out, wrapping around him.

He struggled, twisting to try and get out of the net, but was dragged up onto the deck. Pidge was yanked up as well, gasping loudly for breath.

Lance looked up as he flopped onto the deck, his heart freezing when he realized he was looking at the same person that had speared him before, the one that had hurt him when he met Keith.

“That’s not the one we want,” a feminine voice spoke up. “He’ll be bait though. Lure the other one in.”

Lance twisted around in the net, unable to move properly. The woman was aging, with long, white hair contrasting against dark skin. Her dark yellow eyes burned into him, highlighted by the red Altean marks on her cheekbones.

Beyond her, all of Voltron’s crew was kneeling down, tied up, including Lotor. All of them had their arms bound behind them to their legs, their mouths covered so that they couldn’t speak.

Though Lotor was tied, he wasn’t gagged like the others. Narti was free though, standing with three other women, Lotor glaring at them with heated betrayal.

“Sendak,” the woman said, “hurry the other one along, but don’t kill him.”

Lance jerked back as the man before him, Sendak apparently, brought up _his_ missing spear. He cried out as it was once again stabbed into his tail, though the wound wasn’t nearly as bad as the first one.

Wrapped up in the net, Lance couldn’t move as he was once again tossed into the water. It was only briefly, but it was enough for him to catch a familiar, violet glow coming towards him. He couldn’t even cry out as he was ripped out of the water again, another next dragging a struggling Keith out.

The two mers were tossed onto the deck where they couldn’t get back into the ocean. Lance looked around at Keith, squirming closer to him.

“It’s okay,” Lance muttered to Keith, reaching through the nets to grab his hand. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

A tall, muscular woman approached them with thick nylon ropes, no doubt to tie them up so they couldn’t use their sharp teeth or claws to get out. Lance wasn’t sure Keith saw her coming, because he didn’t move his head to look around, and he was about to warn him. That’s when he saw Keith’s eyes move, looking at the shiny, reflective side of the ship. His body tensed, and as she reached down, he whipped around, lashing out with the blade he always wore on his hip.

At first, the woman cursed loudly as Keith slashed her hands, but as another woman, this one with long, red hair, kicked the knife out of Keith’s hand and pinned him, the bigger woman started to laugh. “That one’s a fighter! I like him!”

“Get him tied up!” Sendak yelled.

“No,” the old woman said as she walked forward. “That one can stay free. He won’t do anything.”

Keith looked up at the old woman for the first time, no doubt ready to lash out at her too. Instead, his entire body tensed and he jerked away from her, alarm crossing his features.

She chuckled and fearlessly leaned closer to him. “You know who I am, don’t you?” 

He moved away from her, scooting back closer to Lances side, never taking his eyes off of the old woman, and only stopped moving when they were touching one another.

“Lance,” Keith muttered, his voice pitching even as he whispered, eyes staring at the woman with alarm. “It’s her.”

Before Lance could ask him what he meant, Lotor straightened up and snapped, “Mother! I demand to know the meaning of this!” The Prince was far from amused. In fact, he looked positively livid.

The woman moved towards him, an almost affectionate expression on her face. “My son. I am so proud of you for locating Oriande for me. It’s a step in the right direction for us to get back what belongs to us.”

Lance’s eyes went wide. This woman was Lotor’s mother?

“What belongs to us?” Lotor spat out. “Daibazaal grows more prosperous the more we distance ourselves from father’s reign! We need for nothing and _you_ have no power.”

“And yet, you run around after your little fancies and leave Daibazaal without a King,” she pointed out. “I am the Queen Mother. Without you, and with _machines_ keeping your father barely alive, I became a beacon of hope to the citizens you left behind.”

Lotor glared at her fiercely. “So you take my generals, have one _spy_ on me,” his eyes darted to Narti angrily, “and then what? What is your purpose here!”

“As I said, stupid boy, to reclaim what is rightfully ours.”  She turned and looked towards Lance and Keith. “Did you know that all Alteans, including myself, my son, the Princess, and her advisor, are descendants of the sea?” She motioned back towards their tied up friends. “Of myself and those who were banished with me.”  
  
“Who are you?” Lance asked warily, managing to twist his hand out of the net enough to touch Keith, who was positively _shaking_ , though from cold, fear, or anger, he couldn’t tell. 

“The witch,” Keith muttered. Lance looked at him, brow furrowing slightly, not understanding. Then he remembered the story of Oriande’s fall, and looked up at the woman in shock.

“That is one thing I’ve been called,” She admitted. “Some stories called me Haggar, though my name is Honerva, the Queen Mother of Daibazaal.”

“The witch? Haggar? What is the meaning of this!” Lotor had said once that his mother was struck ill with madness, and honestly, Lance could finally agree with him on something.

“Enough, Lotor,” Honerva called out to him, and one of the men dressed in black pushed him back down onto his knees more. “You look at this place as a fountain of knowledge, but this city means nothing in the grand scheme of things. The ruins are just that, ruins. What matters is what was lost here.” She looked towards the two mers sitting there, Lance shifting closer to Keith. “The Heart of the Sea can be used for many things, including healing, knowledge, and control.” She paused. “I wish to return to the sea. Tell me where the Heart is.”

“It’s a _myth_ ,” Lance snapped, his voice pitching.

“No, it’s not.” Lance felt his skin crawling as Honerva eyed him. “I use d a spell to draw in the Guardian, and there you were. I thought at first that you were such a plain mer, it didn’t make sense. Then I wondered, if perhaps, it wasn’t simply a smart plan, to hide its power under something so ordinary. But no, that’s not true. The Heart always leaves its mark. You were a coincidence.” She turned her attention to Keith. “You were not.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Keith snapped at her coldly.

“Narti has sent me that one’s notes,” Honerva motioned to Matt, who groaned unhappily at that. “You two are fated mates. I drew you in, and he was drawn to you. He also says that your glow comes from deep in the ocean, but we both know that’s not true.”

“I don’t—“

Honerva ignored him, interrupting him by turning to speak to Lance. “He told you, didn’t he? He told you that he knows where the Heart is.”

Lance was pulled back to a few nights ago, curled up with Keith in the lifeboat. Keith had leaned close to him, lips brushing against his ear as he whispered, “The Heart is real, and I know where it is.”

His heart started racing as it hit Lance that the story that he had always assumed was a myth was absolutely true. He had been to Oriande. This was the witch in front of him. Keith had said that fated mates came from the two that survived the witch’s attack.

It was all real, and somehow, Keith was wrapped up in all of this. Honerva called him ‘the Guardian’, whatever that meant, but that didn’t matter. What was important was that Keith was his fated mate, and he wasn’t going to say or do anything that could hurt him.

So he said nothing at all.

Honerva frowned and pointed at something behind her. Her guards dragged a bound and gagged Hunk forward, throwing him onto the deck, a violent violet glow appearing around her hands.

Lance had seen magic before. He had seen Allura use magic, but it was always so bright and warm, not at all like this. His heart leapt to his throat as Honerva inched her glowing hand closer to Hunk. “These people mean nothing to me. But a means to an end. I don’t even need the Princess. Tell me.”

Lance struggled against the net, tail lashing out wildly as he met Hunk’s horrified eyes. “It’s not here! Why do you go look for yourself!”

“I cannot,” Honerva answered simply.

That answer confused Lance, but then his mind went back to the legend of Oriande, of the Heart of the Sea. The witch had been banished from the sea. She literally couldn’t go into the water.

Her glowing hand was getting closer to Hunk’s head, and with a massive heave, Lance finally managed to break through the net, his heavy tail lashing out at Honerva. Sendak slammed his gun to his head, forcing him down onto the deck. He caught sight of the man switching weapons, getting his spear out again and holding it into the air.

He instinctively twitched away. This was going to hurt.

“Feyiv!” Everyone froze, looking around at Keith, who was struggling again a few men. He was staring at Lance in horror as he repeated, “You need to go to Feyiv.”

“Of course,” Honerva said, as if it was an obvious answer. “With Oriande in ruins, they would have been the most magical place to go.” She moved away from Hunk, stepping closer to the mer she was speaking to. “Lead us there.”

If Keith really was some type of guardian, there was no way he would lead the actual witch to where the Heart of the Sea was. No way at all.

Except, Keith had claimed that he was supposed to be alone. That he was never supposed to meet his fated mate.

As Keith’s eyes met his, Lance instantly knew _why_ Keith had been told this. His stomach dropped, and he knew what was going to come next.

“If you let them all go, I’ll take you there,” Keith said, meeting Hagger’s eyes. “I’ll let you in the ocean again.”

A wicked smirk that made Lance shiver spread across her lips. “Of course. Only after you take us there.”

…

King Alfor had once voiced concern that his daughter’s ship needed more crew. Trustworthy people that would be there to help them, and though it went unsaid, Coran knew that he had meant that there would be more people there to protect Allura too.

How this had happened, the man wasn’t quite sure. He had seen the other ship approaching, and had recognized the Daizabaal insignia on it, and hadn’t thought much of it until it was too late, and he was forced to send a message at gunpoint to get the sub back up.

Coran wished that they had more crew on their side. He wished that he had thought more of Narti sending a few transmissions at night. He had actually seen her doing it! He had just assumed the best of her, that she was sending Lotor’s research back home when she had some down time. It didn’t matter to her if it was night or day.

He grimaced as he watched the scene in front of him unfold. Having grown up next to the sea, he had heard his fair share of myths and legends. Knowing that they were real was something else, especially when the minotaur was staring back at you.

Desperately trying to think, he looked around at all of his companions, all terrified, tied up and gagged. A glint out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he realized that Shiro was _very_ slowly trying to use part of his arm to cut his ropes. It didn’t seem to be doing much, but if he kept it up, it just might work.

It was the best idea any of them had right now. All they could do in the mean time was watch.

…

The witch apparently wasn’t taking any chances with them. All of Voltron’s crew, as well as Lotor, were securely tied so that their hands were bound to the rails on the ship, feet tied tightly, and gags double-checked. Even Lotor was eventually silence when he kept protesting.

Lance was dragged to the opposite side of the deck, his arms bound similarly. The problem for them came with his thrashing tail, so another let was wrapped around it and pinned down to the deck of the ship.

“Don’t touch him!” Lance snapped as one of the men came up behind Keith, grabbing him tightly in an attempt to keep him still. There was really no need for him to worry though. The man let out a howl of pain, jerking away from Keith, blood blooming on his shirt. He stumbled and hit the ground, his body twitching.

Keith pulled his spines into his back, staring at the man coolly as he stopped moving. The mer had once told Lance that he could control the about of venom in his barbs at any given time. He must have made it very potent for this guy.

Sendak hit Keith like he had Lance, throwing the mer onto the deck. Keith grunted, grimacing as the man stood on his arm.

“Hold him down,” Sendak ordered. “Try not to make contact with his skin, we don’t know if he has any other hidden barbs.”

More soldiers came over, holding Keith down much more carefully. The mer thrashed as another man came over, what looked like some kind of gun in his hands.

“What are you doing to him?” Lance called out, trying to thrash. “Leave him alone!”

“We can’t lose him in the sea,” Honerva said simply, watching the altercation from a safe distance. “You may be his fated mate, but I do not trust him not to trick us.”

Lance had seen humans tag ocean animals before, but it had never seemed this violent. The animal might be agitated for a minute, but then they went on their merry way. Keith cried out as he was tagged at the point where his tail tapered out to more delicate fins at the bottom, drops of blood hitting the deck.

The men quickly backed away from Keith, who fell still, but was breathing heavily. Sendak waited a moment before grabbing him by the hair and yanking him up, heading towards the side of the deck.

“Wait,” Honerva told him. “We’re not barbarians. Let them say goodbye.” Lance really didn’t like the nasty smirk on her face that marred any of the beauty that might have been there once. There wasn’t much time to think on that though, as Keith was tossed towards him.

Lance shifted, cursing the fact that his hands were bound above him. “Keith. Are you okay?”  He breathed out when Keith twisted around, staring at him in obvious pain. “You can still get away. You can still go. It’s more important than us and you know it.”

Keith shook his head wildly. “No. I have to.”

“What do you mean, you have to?”

Keith shifted closer to Lance, not undoing his restraints, but instead slumping down onto him and whispering, “Just trust me.” 

God, Lance wanted to hold him. He would do anything to go back to when they were swimming in Oriande, playing, goofing around, kissing. Had that really been just earlier that day?

He leaned his head on top of Keith’s and said, “Alright.”

Keith was pulled away from him again, struggling against his captors on instinct. He was heaved up an roughly tossed back into the ocean. Lance grimaced and tried to get up and crane his neck to see him.

“Now, Guardian, lead us to Feyiv,” Honerva said, going as close to the edge of the ship as she dared. Lance wondered what would happen to her if she fell into the ocean, but didn’t have the mobility to test this.

Lance heard a splash, no doubt Keith going underwater. He forced himself to look away, catching the terrified and confused eyes of his human friends, and took a deep breath. Keith asked him to trust him, and that was exactly what he was going to do.


	11. Out Of Control

_Violet eyes peered over a large outcropping of rock, staring at the fish moving in front of him. He wiggled his short tail slightly, trying to get his balance, and lunged forward in the water._

_Or, he tried to. A strong arm came out, wrapping around him and tugging him back. He pouted and looked up at dark grey eyes. “Dad!”_

_The man put a finger to his lips and pointed towards the fish. Keith followed his finger, watching the fish that he had been trying to hunt. His father inched them closer to the wall, holding him close, and a moment later, Keith saw why. He flinched as a large shark shot into view, snagging the fish in its powerful jaws. Keith wasn’t very fast yet, and he was bigger than the fish. The shark probably would have gone after him._

_Despite knowing this, Keith pouted a bit and looked up at his father. “I coulda got it.”_

_“I’m sure you could have,” his father humoured him as he started swimming away, red and orange tail propelling them along quickly. “But maybe you can try on your own when you’re a bit older. Not when I told you to stay at home.”_

_Keith shrunk down a bit in his arms._

_“Keith…”_

_"_ _I’m sorry!” He blurt out. “Those other guppies said I could never be a good under! They say I’m too small with too many frilly fins and too pretty.” He scowled. “I don’t like being pretty.”_

_“There’s nothing wrong with that,” his father insisted. “I like to think I’m pretty too. Am I a bad hunter?”_

_The little mer stared up at him with wide, indigo eyes. “No! You’re the best hunter ever! I wanna be just like you!”_

_His father chuckled. “Don’t worry, Keith. You’ll get your chance. I promise.”_

_Keith sighed, leaning his head on his father’s shoulder with a small nod. He didn’t like it, but his father wouldn’t lead him wrong._

…

Allura was _furious_. Furious with Honerva and those following her. Furious at Lotor. Furious at Keith and Lance. More than anything though, she was furious with herself. Yes, it was Lotor’s suggestion to come on this trip, he was the one that had put the story of Oriande in her head, but it was _her_ voice to go. Voltron was her ship, this was her crew.

She had let passionate words of an ancient legend influence her. Yes, Allura could acknowledge that she had no way of knowing that there was more to the legend than Keith told them. She had no way of knowing it wasn’t a legend at all, but a truth. That didn’t matter though, she still blamed herself.

Honestly, after watching Honerva, Allura realized that she couldn’t really blame Lotor either. He had absolutely no idea of who or what she was, no idea of what was going to happen. Honerva had probably been putting stories of Oriande in his head since he was born. He was clearly shocked at the betrayal of those closest to him as well.

She still felt so stupid. Like there was something she could have done to prevent this, something she could be doing now.

Shiro shifted a bit beside her, and she glanced over, noting that he had almost gotten through the ropes binding his hands together. He was purposely going slow so no one would notice him.

Her eyes then turned towards Lance, who looked absolutely miserable. She wondered when he had last been out of the water this long, because his scales looked dreadfully dry, and that couldn’t be healthy for him.

Allura wondered if Keith was okay, and if he truly was leading them to the Heart of the Sea. He certainly knew where Oriande was, so she wasn’t quite sure what else to expect.

Honerva appeared in front of them, and Shiro froze in his moments. Allura looked up at the woman defiantly. The two of them stared at one another, and in that moment, she could _feel_ the powerful magic radiating off of the Queen.

She had met Honerva before, so how had she never noticed _this_? It certainly explained why Keith seemed _frightened_ earlier.

She would not bow down though. This was _her_ ship, her crew. Allura could feel something rising up in her too, and it wasn’t her blood pressure or anything physical like that. It was a part of herself that could relate to the mers and even this witch before her.

That’s right, she wasn’t helpless. She too could use magic, though probably not anywhere close to the same extent. Lashing out now wouldn’t help any, though she desperately wanted to. No, it was better for Honerva to think that she was too weak to fight back right now.

Without saying anything, the witch walked away, and Allura’s mind was racing. They needed to come up with some kind of plan to get out of here, to take the ship back. How they were going to plan anything, she didn’t know, but they had to try.

Allura was the Princess of Altea. She was _not_ going down without a fight.

…

_“Again!”_

_Keith snarled angrily, looking over his shoulder at a tall mer with tough, dull scales of black, grey, and purple. Resentment rushed through him, but he turned back to the other young mer he was practicing with._

_Their blades met again and again as they sparred for what felt like the hundredth time. It was obvious that it was wearing on the other boy. It was getting to Keith too, but in a different way. He loved sparring, he really did, he was good at it, but it was getting annoying that he had to keep fighting all these mers that were weaker than him._

_It wasn’t that he was completely arrogant. Keith just knew that the best way for him to learn was to learn from those that were better than him. That was what he wanted to do. Fight his betters and learn._

_When the other mer gave up, Keith turned around at looked at the man. “Are we done, Kolivan?”_

_Kolivan regarded him with those stern, golden eyes. “Are you backing down from the challenge?”_

_“No! I want a challenge!” he burst out angrily. “You keep telling me over and over again that I’m the best one here but then you turn around and tell me that I’m not good enough for…whatever it is you want.”_

_The old mer eyed him before saying, “You want a challenge?” He nodded at something behind Keith. “Then you will get a challenge.”_

_Keith turned around, blinking with surprise at the mer that was now floating behind him. “Mom?”_  
  
_Krolia stared at her son with a stern expression and said, “Come on, Keith. You want to learn?”_

_Yes. This was honestly what he wanted more than anything else. He nodded his head, holding his blade at the ready. It was subtle, but Krolia sent him a small smile._

_“Begin!” Kolivan cried out._

…

Keith breathed in and out rapidly as he swam through the water. His gills filtered the oxygen from the water into his lungs quickly as they could, but he was almost certain that he’d have to close them and go to the surface to use his mouth and nose.

He also didn’t want to go near the surface again, not until he was close. He had been swimming non-stop since he was tossed from Voltron and into the ocean, knowing that the ship was following him. His tail ached horribly from the tag they had pierced into him improperly (he had seen them on all kinds of animals before), but he didn’t stop.

Keith was used to being alone. He had been alone for a long time, longer than Lance even seemed to grasp. He knew why he had to be alone, why Kolivan had told him so over and over just so he wouldn’t forget.

Or, he always thought he knew why. It was only now that he realized _exactly_ why the old mer had been so strict with him to the point that he wasn’t even allowed to be around his own mother anymore.

He wondered what had happened to her. Mers lived for a very long time, so maybe she was still out there somewhere. He was too nervous to ask the ocean about her, and in turn, it didn’t whisper to him either.

Keith could feel it around him now, warm and familiar and full of life. The ocean was more powerful than any of them could even fathom, and nothing could truly control it. It would have been easy to ask it to create a storm, to sink the ships, but he thought of Lance’s friends, the humans that he found himself becoming fond off.

He couldn’t help them die here, not when he could do something about this.

Despite everything he had been told, never once had he actually believed that the witch would still be alive. The legends whispered of her unholy magic that she had stolen from the God of Death and Destruction.

The power still radiated off of her after so long. It was _terrifying_ , and his fated mate was up there with her.

Exhausted, Keith finally came to a stop, staring down at the depths below him. He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to let the witch into the sea, but more than anything, he trusted his instincts.

Though he asked Lance to trust him, Keith honestly didn’t have a plan. He was genuinely just trusting his gut feelings on what he needed to do to get everyone out of this situation. It was hard though, because this wasn’t the first time the witch had tried something like this, and it wouldn’t be the last if she just sailed away.

He had to do _something_ to stop her.

He lurched up towards the surface, going up and up until he saw the shape of the ship. He surfaced, waiting until the witch appeared at the edge of the ship. “Have we arrived?”

“Yes,” Keith muttered. He backed away slightly, pressing his lips together before saying, “You can come back into the ocean.” He shuddered, not liking the feeling of that. Vows and promises were something mers took seriously on both principal, and because of the magic within them.

The witch reached down, dipping her hand into the ocean. She sighed almost blissfully and said, “It no longer burns.” She turned around. “Tie them up in the cabin. Lotor as well for now. You will surly come to see my way, son. Prep the submarine to go down. I will be taking this mer down with me.” She approached the edge of the boat. “Should something happen to me, slaughter Voltron’s crew one by one. The Princess last, but if you must, her as well.” There were nods of agreement that made Keith sick.

“Milady, how will you be going down?” one of the women on board asked.

“The way I always used to.” The witch vanished from sight briefly, coming back and dragging something that was obviously heavy with her.

Keith couldn’t stop the hiss from escaping his lips when he saw Lance. There was blood dying on his head, and he was unconscious now. He was alternating between breathing through his mouth and his gills, which was never a good thing to do. Gills were for below the sea, breathing through the nose and the mouth for above. His fins were so dry that they looked like they were going to flake off. Mers liked sunbathing, but only for so long, because being dry for too long was terrible for them.

It surprised him when the witch actually managed to lift Lance (dragging was another thing), because he was quite heavy. There was no ceremony or words as she let herself fall into the sea.

…

Pidge decided that either these guys, who seemed to call themselves the Galra, were either really, really stupid, or just really cocky. Actually, maybe they were a bit of both.

The logical thing to do would have been to separate them. Maybe knock them out and put them in their rooms or something. That’s what she would have done.

Not everyone was her though.

Shiro had made quick work of his ropes before going around and untying everyone else quickly and quietly.

“We need a plan,” he said, narrowing his grey eyes. Turning towards Lotor, he asked, “Did you know?”

“That my mother is apparently a psychotic, millennia old mer-witch from legends?” Lotor asked bitterly. “Or did I know that Narti and all of my other assistants were spies loyal to her? No, I certainly did not.”

Before anyone could rise to Lotor’s surprisingly sarcastic comment, Matt drew their attention to him as he asked, “Okay, wait a minute. This is all—this is all crazy. Let’s take a second and get all the facts straight. The legend of Oriande was real. The witch was real. The Heart of the Sea is apparently real but it wasn’t in Oriande. Keith knows where it is because he’s some kind of guardian. The Witch, who is apparently Lotor’s mother who doesn’t look all that old for being a _legendary witch_ , is basically using Lance _and_ us to get Keith to take her down to where the real Heart is.” He paused, brows furrowing. “Seems a bit backwards for a guardian.”

Allura thought on that for a moment. “Magic is a powerful force in this world, able to counteract even the most basic of sciences, and that’s magic that certain people can do.” She held her hand out, a pale pink glow covering them briefly. “If a mer makes a vow, they’re bound to uphold it. I imagine fated mates probably have a bond stronger than that. Honerva probably would have known this.”

“Okay, so we assume that Keith can’t help but try to protect Lance and vice versa,” Matt said with a nod of his head. “But let’s go back to this Heart of the Sea thing. Is it really…something that can _control_ the oceans? What does that mean? What’s our worst case scenario?”

“I was skeptical too, I mean, magic’s real, but that sounds like something else altogether,” Pidge agreed.

“It doesn’t matter what we believe,” Shiro decided, looking around at everyone else. “We need to run with the assumption that the worst-case scenario is about to happen, and that ‘controling the oceans’ means exactly what it sounds like. Control the physical oceans, maybe even the animals within it. Can you imagine the devastation that could cause?”

They all sat silently, each one picture what it could mean for someone so unhinged to _actually_ be able to control the oceans. It would impact every avenue of human life, if only residually.

Hunk suddenly groaned, putting his head in his hands and shaking it. “Oh man. Keith should have let her kill me instead of taking her to this place.” He had been the one in danger when Keith agreed to take them to this new place, Feyiv.

“Absolutely not!” Coran protested immediately, everyone else nodding in agreement. “He made the right choice! We just have to help him out! Get ourselves out of this situation, and protect Lance. Then she has no leverage.”

Pidge nodded her head. “Most of these guys seem like…useless lackeys, honestly. Like I didn’t know that was a thing that actually existed.” She looked towards Lotor. “What is your Kindgom doing?”

Lotor ignored the last part of her statement. “I’d say my mother hired them. The biggest problems will be Sendak, Axca, Ezor, Zethrid, and Narti. All are highly skilled and incredibly dangerous.”

“That’s fine,” Allura replied, her voice just barely controlling the rage that was hidden beneath. “So are we”

…

When Honerva toppled into the sea, she somehow made it look almost graceful.

She hit the water, letting go of Lance, and light started twisting around her. Keith dove under, shooting forward and grabbing the unconscious mer. He used his sharp claws to cut through the ropes around his hands, and held him close.

“Lance?” he muttered, running a hand over his injury. When he got no response, Keith closed his eyes and pressed his palm to Lance’s head, the speckles and stripes there glowing brighter for a moment. He pulled his hand away, though the print of his palm stayed behind with a lavender glow for a few moments. It faded away along with Lance’s injury.

“Keith?” Lance grumbled as he slowly opened his eyes. He looked up, reaching up to brush his hands along Keith’s cheek. “You okay?”

“Idiot,” Keith muttered, pressing their foreheads together.

The water suddenly crackled with energy, startling both of them. They both wheeled around, and Keith recoiled in shock.

The witch, Honerva, was there, a long, serpentine tail of reds, golds, and blacks trailing under her, looking like it could wrap around both of them with ease and crush them.

“Shall we go?” she asked, her eyes a solid yellow now as she was taking strength from the ocean itself again.

Keith stared at her in horror before twisting around to look at Lance.

“Please tell me you have a plan,” Lance muttered, blue eyes scanning his face for answers.

No, Keith really didn’t. He didn’t need to know that though. “Just trust me, please.”

Lance nodded his head, looking at Honerva nervously before looking at him. He grabbed Keith’s hand and held it over his chest. “With all my heart, because it’s yours, you know.”

Something warm and wonderful and _terrible_ rose up within Keith, because he suddenly knew exactly what it was he had to do, and he didn’t like it at all.

He put his hand over Lance’s. “I do. I do know.”


	12. Feyiv

Swimming deep into the ocean with a sea witch and a dark, lurking submarine trailing after them was incredibly alarming.

Lance tried to piece together exactly how they got into this situation, but he couldn’t quite do it. Some of the pieces were missing, and that made his already aching head throb more. He squeezed Keith’s hand tightly, and though his mate didn’t look back at him, he squeezed his hands reassuringly.

Maybe it was Lance’s aching skull, but it didn’t hit him right away that, though they trailed down deeper into the ocean than he had _ever_ gone before, into the pitch blackness, it suddenly looked like it was actually getting brighter. He was able to see much better, at any rate.

As they swam farther down, he realized that it wasn’t just him making things up. There actually _was_ light down below them.

He narrowed his eyes and muttered, “What is that? How can something be glowing so brightly down here?”

“It’s Feyiv,” Keith told him, his voice strained.

Lance glanced over at him, frowning at the look on his face. He almost seemed…haunted, like ghosts from the place itself were reaching out to him and pulling him back into some kind of terribly memory. He didn’t like that look at all.

He paused for a moment, reaching up and putting his hand on Keith’s cheek. He looked at him, startled. Lance wanted to comfort him, but Honerva said, “The longer we take down here, the more of your friends die at the surface.”

They started moving again, Keith’s grip tightening on Lance’s hand.

A large, looming structure rose out of the dark depths of the ocean, a tall mountain with a pointed structure at the top. In the center of it, glowing a vibrant purple that flickered and twisted, lashing upwards to the top of the structure.

Lance stared at the light in pure awe. “Is that _fire_?” Underwater? How was _that_ possible? He hadn’t even known it could be done with magic.

“The Seaflame,” Keith said, drawing Lance’s attention back to him. The glow from the violet flames flickered in his eyes. “We may be under water, but it can burn just as easily as anything on land.”

Honerva shifted closer to it, the submarine that had been trailing them coming to a stop and hovering close by.

Lance watched her go before turning his attention to the flames. Something seemed incredibly familiar about them, now that he thought of it. Keith shifted next to him, and he looked at him.

That’s when it hit him. The violet glow that Keith always emitted was the exact same. It even seemed to pulse with the flames, dimming slightly when they did and glowing stronger at the same time. How had he never noticed that the glow wasn’t exactly constant or consistent? It always seemed to be _pulsing_ , though it was much more obvious now.

Lanec looked at Feyiv again before looking back at Keith. “The Heart of the Sea is in the flames, isn’t it?”

…

The first time that they had come onto Allura’s ship, Voltron, Pidge had decided to scope the whole thing out. How could she not be fascinated? The tech on it, the ship itself, was amazingly advanced, a hybridization of technological innovation and magic. She had scoured every inch of it more than once.

Never had she thought that it would help her sneak around a group of mercenaries that took over the ship. She had her black, white, and green dive suit on four a few reasons. The suits themselves were highly advanced, and she could use it to keep in contact with everyone else while also being ready to jump ship if needed. The suits were streamlined, and great for sneaking around in, plus they were made to withstand shark bites, so if someone came at them with a knife, they’d have some kind of protection.

The only thing that would make it better was if she got access to the computer mainframe of the ship. Normally she would have had automatic access, but everything had been scrambled in the takeover.

Her job was simple, disable communications to the Sincline as well as the submarine that went below, and re-establish a connection with all of their equipment.

She peered around the corner, noting the man leaning against the wall carelessly. She may have been small and not particularly athletically inclined, but that didn’t matter if her opponent wasn’t paying attention.

Rookie mistake.

Pidge launched herself forward, slamming her weapon of choice (which was kind of like a combination of a grappling hook and a taser, her own design, of course) onto the man’s head. He hit the ground with a loud thunk, and she paused, waiting to see if someone had heard that. When no one else came in, she went at the computers.

“I’m in,” she whispered into her comms. “Give me a minute to scramble everything. I’m also going to try and get you a comprehensive layout of this place.”

“You can do that?” Shiro asked her, keeping his voice low from where he was hiding.

“This ship has enough sensors on it for me to be able to pick up basic life and heat signatures, so yes.” Pidge worked quickly, looking at all of the screens. “Alright, communication is cut outside of our comms. Means we won’t be calling for other ships either if we see them.”

Everyone stayed silent for a moment before Allura asked, “Are you almost ready, Pidge?”

“Yeah, I’m almost…” She trailed off, making sure that no one else could break into the systems. “You’re good to go. I’ll be here monitoring the other ship and the sub below. Give ‘em hell and let me know when I’m locking all the doors.”

She heard confirmation from everyone else, and went back to the door, sealing it shut. She sat at one of the chairs and waited.

…

_Keith was muttering under his breath, trying to remember everything that he had been told, everything that he needed to know as they swam low in the ocean, the darkness completely surrounding them._

_There could easily be creatures lurking nearby, watching the traveling pod (Though they weren’t really a pod, were they?) pass through the canyons._

_A brush of fins caught his attention, and Keith looked up at his mother. She smiled at him, a strange twist of pride and sadness. It made him wonder what his father would have thought if he were still alive. Would he had been proud of Keith? Or would he have been scared?_

_Keith hoped the mer would have felt pride. He had worked so hard in training and taking in all of the lessons everyone around him gave. It was so hard, he wasn’t one who wanted to sit still and would rather be doing things, but this was important, and he had been chosen._

_He wasn’t quite sure what he had been chosen for, but he knew it was huge._

_He looked around, and realized that things were getting brighter, like there was a distant sunrise deep down in the ocean. “Is there light down here?”_

_“Yes,” Krolia answered. “We’re almost there.”_

_They travelled in silence for a little while longer, before rounding the bend of a looming mountain. Keith immediately came to a stop, gaping in awe at the scene before him. A tall mountain rose out of the ocean floor, a shrine on top with a brilliant, purple flame at the top._

_“What is that?” he asked in awe. He started swimming again when his mother nudged him._

_“That’s called fire,” Krolia answered. “This is a special, magical fire called the Seaflame. Normally, water puts out a fire, and it tends to be orange or yellow. Like the sun.”_

_Keith slowly nodded, following the others up towards the flames. It was only when they got closer that he noticed the figure of another mer there. After blinking his eyes to get used to the blinding, violet light, he realized that he knew this mer. He had been around for some of their final training sessions. If Keith remembered right, his name was Ulaz._

_Ulaz approached then. “Kolivan, there were no problems?”_

_“None,” the large mer answered, his voice stern as always._

_Ulaz nodded in response to that and looked towards Keith. He smiled at him and said, “Come here, young one. Do not fear the flames.”_

_Keith started to move towards him, but stopped, looking over his shoulder at his mother. Krolia had that look on her face again, the one that was proud, but so, so sad. She nodded her head, and instead of contemplating on what that look might mean, Keith swam towards Ulaz._

_As he got closer, Keith couldn’t help but notice the way the light danced across his shiny red scales. It almost made them look like he was glowing._

_“Do you know who I am?” the old mer asked._

_“Your name is Ulaz,” Keith answered confidently._

_“That’s right.” He nodded. “Do you know what I am?”_

_The younger of the two bit his lip. He had heard the murmurs between Kolivan, Antok, Thace, and his mother. What had they called him again? “The Guardian.”_

_“Correct.” Another nod. “Of what?”_

_This gave the young mer pause. He once again looked back at his mother and the others with her before looking at him, his cheeks burning with embarrassment. “I—I don’t know.”_

…

Hunk finished tying Zethrid’s hands with the strong cables that they decided to use. It was a lot harder to cut through than rope, and none of them had a powerful, Altean prosthetic to cut through the bindings.

Not even Sendak. Lotor had made sure of that, slashing off his prosthetic arm and tossing it into the sea.

Shiro was steering Voltron away from the Sincline, which started trailing after them, trying to catch up once the crew realized what had happened.

Hunk felt his heart leap into his throat. They were going to catch them, and they were going to be overrun again, probably thrown overboard or killed.

Then the oddest thing happened. The Sincline started going backwards, like something was pulling it.

“What’s happening?” he called out, staring in horror as the waves became rough, much like they did before a storm. The only problem with that was that there was barely a breeze, and the sky was completely clear.

“What’s up?” Pidge asked through the comms.

“The Sincline is being _dragged_ away,” Matt answered for him. “And the water’s being weird.”

“Give me a minute, I’ll put some rovers out and see what’s up,” Pidge told them.

“No need, I can see what’s happening from here,” Shiro’s faint voice said. “There’s a whirlpool forming.”

Everything seemed to freeze for a moment before the water got rougher. Hunk held onto the ship for dear life and looked back towards the Sincline.

Holy shit, Shiro was right. There was a massive whirlpool pulling it in.

“Do you think it’s Honerva?” Matt called out from where he was holding on too.

“Pull her own ship down? No,” Lotor called back, eyes narrowed. “No, this is something else.”

Hunk felt his stomach drop as he watched the ship get yanked down into the ocean, and couldn’t help but look at the crew of the Sincline that they had kept on their ship. All of them seemed to have instantly lost the fight they had when they watched their vessel vanish from sight.

He couldn’t blame them. This wasn’t just guns and betrayal that they were dealing with. This was something more. Something far, far more.

…

“Your Highness,” a voice faintly echoed out from the speakers on the submarine. “We can no longer reach either ship. How would you like us to proceed?”

She waved her hand. “It is of no consequence to me.” She swam around the shrine, staring at the carvings with growing frustration. “How do I get the Heart?”

Lance looked from the submarine, to Honerva. He got the distinct feeling that there was some kind of disconnect here, that they were functioning on different wavelengths. Honerva was clearly off her rocker, and she probably could care less about the men she had brought with her into the depths. They were just there to keep him and Keith in line.

He looked towards the mer in question and bit his lip. He let go of Keith’s hand, who made a sound of protest as Lance swam forward. “You have what you want, so let us go! There’s nothing we can do for you anymore!”

Without turning to face him, Honerva held out a clawed hand, and dark, violet light streaked out of it, slamming into him. Lance had once been shocked by that stupid little weapon Pidge made (he had been dry at the time, thankfully), and it hadn’t been any fun at all. This was a hundred times worse.

He cried out, thrashing in pain. He could hear Keith yelling, and suddenly, Honerva was thrown aside, slamming into the hard surface of the shrine as if the ocean itself had acted.

“Lance? Are you okay?” Keith’s voice was faint, and his touch prompted Lance to groan as his body spasmed, fingers grasping Keith’s pale arms and squeezing tightly. “I’m here. You’re okay. I’m here.”

“Tell me where it is!” Honerva howled at Keith, holding her hand out towards them. Lance opened his eyes to glare at her as Keith pulled him closer.

Everything was so tense, and it felt like time stretched on forever, though it was probably only a few seconds in reality. Lance looked up at Keith, who narrowed his eyes at Honerva defiantly and said, “Right in front of you.”

Honerva growled and looked back at the flames before her entire body froze. Slowly, she twisted around again, staring directly at them. “Right in front of me?”

Lance grimaced as she approached them, reaching a gangly arm out at brushing a sharp nail against Keith’s cheek. The mer stayed completely still, glaring at her.

“Don’t touch him!” Lance snapped, lashing out and slamming his tail into her, forcing her away. “The Heart’s in the fire! Just use your magic and take it!”

Despite the hit, her gaze never wavered from Keith. “But it’s not, isn it, Guardian?”

“Keith?” Lance asked, looking at him with concern. Keith said nothing. He didn’t even look at it.

“No, of course it’s not,” Honerva said, an eerily wide grin splitting across her face as she pointed at Keith. “It’s not, because _you_ are the Heart of the Sea.”


	13. What You're Willing To Sacrifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah I should PROBABLY throw a warning tag up there for this chapter...

Shiro grunted as he tried to keep the ship under control. The rest of the crew had dragged those that were bound and gagged inside, securely locking them in several rooms that Pidge assured them all they wouldn’t be able to get out of.

There was absolutely no way to predict the behaviour of the ocean, since it didn’t match the weather in the sky at all with its furious waves. There was no way to tell what direction they needed to go to get out of this.

“What’s happening?” Hunk asked, voice tinted with terror.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Coran admitted as they watched the ocean storm from safely inside the helm of the ship. “This must have to do with the Heart of the Sea.”

“That doesn’t really bode well for Lance or Keith then, does it?” Pidge asked, voicing the one thing none of them wanted to think about.

“If this keeps getting worse, there’s a chance it could alter ocean currents,” Lotor noted, his voice grim. He didn’t have to voice the fact that, in turn, the currents would impact the weather almost everywhere. “I can guarantee you that my mother wouldn’t care about something like that. Whatever quest she may be on, it doesn’t change the fact that she lost her mind long ago.”

“It won’t matter to us soon if we don’t get out of this,” Shiro pointed out with gritted teeth.

No one noticed Allura backing towards the door. No one noticed her slip outside. It was only when they looked through the window and saw her down on the deck below that anyone realized she was gone.

“Allura!” Coran cried out, hitting the button for the intercom to the outside of the ship. “What are you doing?”

She looked at them with a smile and pulled her hands close to her chest, closing her eyes. She breathed in deeply, and at first, it simply looked like she was standing there.

Then a faint glow started spreading over her, coming from her clasped hands and consuming her entire body, becoming brighter and brighter to the point where they couldn’t even seen her anymore.

Allura took a deep breath, and her eyes flew open. She knelt down, pressing her hands against the deck. The light rushed from her, spreading across the ship and down into the water immediately around it, a protective sphere that surrounded them.

The water inside the sphere fell still, and with that, the ship stopped bouncing around.

Allura cast a grin up towards everyone else, before her eyes closed and she collapsed down onto the deck.

…

_Ulaz chuckled, at what, Keith didn’t know. He reached forward, putting his hand on top of Keith’s head. “I am the Guardian of the Heart of the Sea.”_

_Keith’s indigo eyes went wide as he stared up at the man in shock. He had heard so many stories about the Heart, and knew that they had to be more than just stories. “Really? Where is it?”_

_The old mer chuckled, taking his hand off of Keith’s head and placing it over his heart. “Here.”_

_The young mer blinked. “What?”_

_Ulaz smiled at him, but something about it seemed almost wistful and sad. He looked up at the shrine, clasping his hands behind his back. “To be the guardian means a great sacrifice. It is a lonely thing. Knowing that, for the rest of your existence, you must protect the greatest power in all the oceans – a power that lives on within you – seems like a grand thing at first. Time tells a different story. And then when your time is up, you live with knowing that you must inflict the same fate on a young one.”_

_“You chose me…” Keith trailed off, not sure if this was a good or a bad thing. Surly having the power of the Heart of the Sea was an amazing thing, right?_

_“You are strong willed, stubborn, fierce, but not unkind. You care about the world around you more than you let on.” Ulaz continued to stare at the flames. “I’ve been watching you for a while. Longer than you realize. You have no met your fated mate. For these reasons and more, I chose you to be my successor. Do you know what a vow is, Keith?”_

_Keith’s eyes widened and he quickly nodded his head. “It’s one of the most powerful forms of magic that all mers can use. It’s the same kind of magic that makes fated mates, but used as a verbal promise that someone can’t break, or bad things happen.”_

_“Yes,” the old mer agreed. “I would assume that Kolivan has been teaching you certain words to say on your trip here.”_

_Keith looked over his shoulder towards Kolivan and his mother again before looking back. “Yes.”_

_“Good. Those vows are important, but remember, they must come from your heart for the magic to be at i’s strongest. Say the words you think are right. Do you understand?”_

_The young mer nodded his head, and felt a wave of nausea rush through him. He had known that he was chosen for something, but it was starting to settle in what that really meant._

_“That is good. First though…” Ulaz trailed off swam to something sitting in front of the flames, almost impossible to see from the intensity of the light. He picked up what looked like a pear and held it out to Keith. “Light the end of the torch with the flames.”_

_Cautiously, Keith reached out an took the swear into his hands. “How? I’ve…I’ve never seen fire before.”_

_Ulaz chuckled. “That’s quite alright. Approach the flames and put the tip into the fire, then slowly pull it out.”_

_Keith nodded and approached the flames,_ _able to feel heat radiating off of them. He started to push the speak towards the fire when he realized how badly his hands were shaking. He glared at them with annoyance, forcing them to steady before thrusting the spear into the fire. He left it there for a few seconds before slowly pulling it out. He couldn’t hide his gasp of awe to see the fire on the end of the spear._

_“Good.” Ulaz nodded and motioned for Keith to come in front of him. He reached out and put his hands over Keith’s. “Now, make your vow.”_

_Keith bit his lip, fighting the urge to once again look towards his mother. This is what he had been training for since his mother found him after his father died. This was what he was meant to do. He wasn’t meant for frivolous things like fated mates and lazing around._

_“I—I vow to protect the oceans and the seas,” he said, trying as hard as he could to keep his voice confident despite his nerves. Keith wasn’t a great speech writer, and tried to remember what Kolivan had told him to say. “I vow to be the Guardian of the Heart, to never give into easy temptation, to never use the powers bestowed onto me for my own gain.” He met Ulaz’s gaze. “I vow to protect my heart, no matter the cost.”_

…

Lance’s entire body ached horribly, and maybe that pain was really getting to him, because he had absolutely _no_ idea what was going on. He looked from Keith, to Honerva, and back again, trying to make sense of the situation. “What’s she talking about? What does that even mean?”

Keith suddenly turned around so that he was facing Lance, leaving his back completely exposed to the witch. He grabbed Lance’s hands and forced him to keep eye contact. “She won’t stop. It’s been thousands of years and she still hasn’t stopped. I’ve heard the stories of things she’s tried to do before and… I—I can’t lose you. I can’t. And everyone else up there? They’ll all be gone. She’ll even kill her son to get what she wants.”

Lance studied him, seeing nothing but pure honesty tinted with fear. He squeezed his hands and said, “So what? What are you going to do? What’s the plan?”

The look on Keith’s face was pretty telling. Getting to know him, Lance realized that he actually kind of sucked at lying and hiding things. It was in that moment that he was sure there was no _actual_ plan.

“Vows are important,” Keith said to him.

“Of course they are,” Lance agreed. Every mer knew that. It was told to them at a very young age so they wouldn’t do something stupid like vow to give their friend their younger brother or sister, or something like that. Apparently Marco had tried to do that with Luis once.

Keith nodded his head and said, “Trust me.”

There was no plan. Lance knew there wasn’t. He could practically feel Honerva’s presence pressing in on them, the submarine looming behind them from the other direction. What did humans say? It was like being stuck between a rock and a hard place?

There was nothing he could do _but_ trust him. “I do. But what are you going to do?”

“What I vowed to do a long time ago.” With a smile and a nod, Keith briefly closed the distance between them, pecking his lips before pulling away. He pried himself away from Lance, who tried to get him to stay, because something about this was starting to nastily feel like a goodbye.

Keith swam to the flames, picking up a spear that was laid out in front of it (Lance had seen Honerva try to pick it up earlier to no avail). He held it out and said, “I’ll give you the Heart of the Sea.”

The witch eyed him skeptically. “Just like that?”

He shook his head. “Of course not. You have to make a vow. You have to do it right. It’s _very_ specific, or it won’t work.” He held the spear out towards her. “Hold onto this.”

Cautiously, and with great suspicion, Honerva took the spear from him, holding onto it. Lance was almost disappointed that she didn’t spontaneously burst into flames (Pidge had told him about that happening to people before but he was skeptical about it).

“Listen to what I say, and say it the exact same,” Keith said sternly. “I vow to keep the Heart of the Sea for myself. To never pass it on to another even after death. I vow never do harm to anything with it. To protect it and not let anything happen to it. I vow to protect the seas, and all the creatures within them.”

Honerva stared at him skeptically for a few moments, and he said the words again.

Finally, she said, “I vow to keep the Heart of the Sea for myself. To never pass it on to another even after death. I vow never do harm to anything with it. To protect it and not let anything happen to it. I vow to protect the seas, and all the creatures within them.”

They both stared at the sphere as it started glowing a faint, almost grey light.

…

_Keith stared at the spear as it started glowing a brilliant white light, looking at Ulaz as the old mer let go. The man smiled at him and said, “Now, it is time.” He motioned towards his chest._

_Not comprehending at first, Keith looked from the mer to the spear, and back, before his eyes went wide. “What? You want me to…” He trailed off and looked back towards his mother, only to be met with that look of pride and sadness. Why was the sadness always there?_

_“Yes,” Ulaz answered, sounding completely at peace with this. “It’s alright, little one. It’ll be okay.”_

_Taking a deep breath, Keith closed his eyes. If he had to do this, he had to keep his hands steady. He had to do this quick and fast. He opened his eyes and held the spear so the flaming end was pointed at Ulaz, and lash out, cringing as the spear slid into his chest oddly easily._

_Ulaz closed his eyes, a peaceful smile on his face as the purple flames spread across his entire body, vanishing as the flames died out. In his place was a brightly glowing light that hovered in front of Keith, pulsing the same purple light as the flames._

_Keith’s gills fluttered rapidly as he tried to get as much oxygen as he possibly could, just staring at the light. The oddest feeling overtook him, like something was surrounding him and whispering that it would be okay. That he did the right thing. That he showed mercy and that he values life._

_It would be okay._

_Slowly, the spear slid from Keith’s hands, vanishing and reappearing back in its holder on the shrine. His hand was reaching forward almost against his own will, fingertips brushing against the light._

_Immediately, Keith was completely overcome. He cried out and hunched over as the lives of all the ocean’s creatures, the magic running through the ocean itself, hit him all at once. He was overwhelmed and humbled, crying as he curled in on himself and closed his eyes. It was too much, it was far, far too much._

_Something reached through all the noise, soothing him, telling him that it would be okay._

_He calmed down some, and slowly opened his eyes, not quite sure when he had closed them. Keith groaned and brought his hand to his eyes, but froze when his fins caught his eye._

_They were the same pattern as before, but had turned grey and purple, and he was glowing, just as Ulaz had._

_Keith reached out, running his fingers over his tail in awe, when he actually felt a presence approach him without even looking._

_He glanced up, taken back by Kolivan, who was glaring down at him fiercely with genuine anger. “What have you done?”_

_Completely taken back by that, Keith moved away from him, though it ached to move. “What? I thought I was supposed to—.”_

_“The vow! It was wrong!”_

_“It’s not that bad,” Thace said, trying to smooth out an argument before it even started._

_“Actually,” Anton said, “it is.”_

_As the three men started arguing, Krolia came around to Keith, looking him over with obvious worry. ”Are you alright?”_

_For the very first time, Keith felt like he truly understood his mother. He could feel her in a way that was completely different from the other mers with them, and it was absolutely amazing. “I can…feel you…I can feel everything.”_

_Krolia smiled at him. “I’m so proud of you. So, so proud.” Her smile faded a bit. “And so afraid.”_

_Keith wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but Kolivan’s voice rose louder, catching his attention._

_“There is only one thing that must be done.” He looked towards Keith, and almost looked regretful. “You must stay alone. Never interact with other mers, never let them in.”_

_What?” Krolia cried out, anger and horror tinting her voice. “That’s unreasonable! His life will outlast all of ours several times over! Ulaz always—“_

_“Ulaz would have done his vow properly,” Kolivan interrupted her. He looked towards Keith. “You hold the fate of the entire ocean within you. The vow you made is the key to keeping the Heart and everything safe. Everything would be at risk if you found your fated mate.”_

…

Lance felt watched Keith and Honerva’s interactions with cautious eyes, but despite this, he didn’t hear the last thing his mate muttered to the witch.

However, his sharp eyes caught her look of malicious glee. It was like watching in slow motion as she brought the spear up, the sharp end pointing towards Keith, and horror shot through him when Lance realized what was about it happen.

He shot forward, a wild cry escaping him, but it was too late.

It had been a long, long time since Keith had seen Ulaz vanish in front of him, but he could still remember the peaceful look on his face. This was not at all peaceful. He cried out as he felt the spear sink into his chest, his entire body shaking.

He jerked again as Honerva pulled the spear away, a vibrant glowing spear following it. Keith sank down against the hard rock of the shrine, the purple glow that had been his companion for so long slowly fading away.

Honerva ignored everything else around her, staring in awe at the Heart of the Sea. She reached forward, her entire hand wrapping around it. A scream escaped her as the power rushed through her, rippling out in a powerful shockwave that sent the submarine careening into the mountain side, slamming into it and breeching the hull.

Honerva didn’t care about the men that were loyal to her, despite knowing what would happen to the submarine this deep down. It didn’t concern her anymore now that she had what she wanted. She opened her hand, staring at the Heart of the Sea in awe. How something so powerful could look like a simple gemstone was beyond her.

She was so consumed by the fact that she was finally holding it after so long that it didn’t even occur to her that it didn’t go into her body, that she had to hold it. 

For his part, Lance also didn’t care about the submarine or the fate of the men within. He didn’t care about the fact that Honerva had to hold the Heart. All he could focus on was getting to Keith.

He practically threw himself onto the floor of the shrine, gathering the mer into his arms. His stomach fell when he saw the gaping wound and all of the blood.

Gods, there was so much blood.

“No,” Lance muttered, holding Keith close and patting at his face. “No! Come on! What kind of plan was that?”

Keith’s eyes slowly fluttered opened, making his heart leap as their eyes met. “It’ll be okay.”

“Of course it will,” Lance said, desperation rushing through him. “You’re going to be fine! Just heal yourself like you healed me.”

A small smile crossed his lips as he reached a shaking hand up, pressing it against Lance’s cheek. Lance reached up, pressing his own hand on top of his. “Trust me, Lance. Her vow. Everything will be fine. You’ll be okay. They’ll be okay. Everyone will.”

“You too.” He was pleading now, he knew he was.

Keith just stared at him and somehow managed to tug him down, kissing him lightly.

Lance felt like screaming as he kissed him back, slowly pulling away and holding him close as sobs shook his entirely body. He was shaking so badly, but he was still able to feel when Keith’s gills stopped twitching, when his chest fell and didn’t rise again.

He choked and buried his face in dark black hair.

Keith was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, that happened. And only one chapter to go. Sorry these ones are pretty rushed, I was DESPERATELY trying to get them out because I lost inspiration in this story but all things considered I'm happy with how it turned out.


	14. Half Of My Life For You

Whatever Allura had done to keep them safe was strong enough to stay around them no matter where they drifted, keeping the ship calm and steady, even as the water started thrashing harder in the ocean. Shiro had little doubt that if Allura hadn’t used her magic to create a barrier to keep them safe, they would have capsized by now.

These waves had to be the result of whatever was happening beneath the surface, and he had a feeling that it wasn’t a good thing. It was strange to know that, while everything looked so _empty_ from up there, that there was a genuine struggling happening down below.

“Oh man,” Hunk muttered, staring out at the ocean with worried brown eyes. “This storm’s getting way worse. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“It’s not just the ocean anymore,” Lotor noted, his dark blue eyes staring up towards the sky. Sure enough, dark clouds were starting to form as the wind picked up outside of the shield.

Shiro was about to respond when Allura shifted and groaned, her eyes slowly blinking open. She looked around, a bit confused, before her eyes met his. “Shiro?”

“Hey,” he smiled down at her and helped her sit up. “We were worried.”

Coran was in front of her almost immediately, grasping her hands. “Goodness, Princess. Don’t use so much energy at once! I thought my heart had stopped!”

“I apologize,” she said, squeezing Coran’s hands back before looking around. “Did it work? Is everyone okay?”

“For now,” Shiro answered, and Allura craned her neck to look at the storm that was brewing.

“Lance and Keith?” she asked, blue eyes widening with horror.

“We don’t know,” Matt said with a shake of his head.

They all hated it, but all they could do was wait.

…

Lance felt numb, like all sensation had left him, leaving him an empty husk of what he once was.

There was a stark difference between not meeting your fated mate, and meeting them, only to lose them. He knew some mers that wasted away if their mate died when they were young. Mers lived for a long time, and long lives without the person that they were meant to be with were terrible. He also knew some that embraced the time they had with their fated mate and continued on with their lives.

Lance wasn’t sure what he wanted to be. Not when he could still feel Keith’s weight in his arms, could still smell him and see him. It wasn’t the same though. There was no smug grin, no signature glow, no comforting rising and falling of his chest. There was nothing.

He ran his fingers through Keith’s hair, holding him close as his entire body shook.

“He served his purpose.”

Anger erupted from Lance as he looked up at Honerva, who was holding the Heart of the Sea in her hand, her scales glowing with the energy and life that should still be within Keith.

Lance bared his razor sharp teeth. “I’m going to _kill_ you.”

She looked unconcerned, simply holding up a hand. Just like that, all of the oxygen in the water around Lance vanished. He gasped, using both his gills and his nose to try and find some oxygen, his lungs slowly starting to burn. Just as black spots started to appear in front of him, the oxygen came back into the water, and he gasped painfully as he was able to breathe again.

“I own the oceans now,” she hissed at him. “Do your best to remember that.” She turned, swimming up towards the surface.

Lance gasped, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He looked down at Keith’s still form, not understanding why he had done what he did, putting everything in danger. “You told me to trust you but how—“

Lance stopped and stared at Keith as all of the pieces lined up, and suddenly, Keith’s reckless, clearly spur of the moment plan came together as one. He mouth dropped open when he realized what it meant, when he realized exactly _what_ Keith had done.

“I’ll stop her, I promise,” Lance muttered to his still form,  taking his knife and carefully leaving him in front of the Seaflame, hoping that no scavengers would come before he got back. There was something very important he needed to do.

After all, vows were a mer’s most powerful form of magic.

…

Pidge was leaning against the edge of the ship when the water below her started to bubble. She barely had time to jerk back, falling into her brother’s arms as the water _exploded_. It twisted up into a massive waterspout, a shark shape appearing at the center of it.

The water fell away, revealing Honerva, and in a sense, she looked mesmerizing, but at the same time, she was horrifying to look at, strips of her long, coiling tail glowing the same way Keith’s had.

“Where are Lance and Keith?” Allura demanded, stern eyes on the sea-witch, despite how weak she currently felt.

Honerva ignored her, looking at the barrier that surrounded them instead. “Impressive magic, Princess. Not as impressive as mine though.”

Allura gritted her teeth together and repeated, “Where are Lance and Keith?” She was almost shouting this time.

The witch just smirked and held out her hand, revealing an absolutely beautiful gemstone that seemed to sparkle in even the most limited light, a very faint glow coming from it. Outside of its beauty and that tiny light, it didn’t really look that special.

Was that the Heart of the Sea?

“Mother,” Lotor said, moving in front of everyone else. “You need to stop this! This storm could change the face of the Earth, it could kill millions!”

“Lotor, my son. You led me back home, and I thank you for that. However, you are as naïve and idiotic as your father.” She shook her head. “There is honour dying in the sea.” She held her hand out again.

Pidge held onto Matt, who squeezed her back. Hunk closed his eyes. Shiro tensed. Coran held onto Allura, and Lotor glared fiercely.

The little light that was in the stone went out.

Honerva stared at it, uncomprehending, and then she gasped. Looking down, she watched in horror as the light started to fade from her tail.

“No,” she muttered, grasping at her own scales, nails digging in and leaving bloody gouges. “No! The power is mine! I had it! I felt it!” Her voice rose into a hysterical screech. Her solid yellow eyes looked towards the boat, focusing on Allura. “What did you do?” She lunged, oddly wide mouth opening to reveal sharp, pointed teeth, nails growing longer.

She never reached her mark. Lance flung himself out of the ocean, slamming himself into the sea witch. The two mers rolled on the deck, struggling with one another until Lance jerked away, five long gashes on his chest from Honerva’s nails, clutching Keith’s knife to his chest.

Honerva was still for a moment before she started laughing, which quickly turned into an eerie cackle.

Lance was shaking, and it was only then that everyone else realized that there was blood dripping from the blade of the knife.

Lotor slowly approached his mother, kneeling down and propping up her upper body to reveal a bloody mess on her chest, coming from the deep wound in her chest. 

“Lotor,” Honerva choked out. She reached up, pressing her bloody palm against his cheek. “Destroy them all. Take back what is ours.”

“No, mother,” he said with a shake of his head. “No. Not like this.”

“Lance, are you okay?” Hunk cried out as he rushed over to the shaking mer, watching as he dropped Keith’s knife. He jerked away from Hunk’s touch, pulling his leg close to him. “Lance?” He looked around, searching for the second mer. “Where’s Keith?”

“The sharks are probably feasting on his corps,” Honerva choked out.

Lance’s head shot up. A bitter smile appeared on his face as he said, “He fooled you though, didn’t he? The vow. You can’t pass the heart on to someone else. You couldn’t harm anything with its power. You had to protect the seas and everything within them.” Lance snorted loudly. “You didn’t even last ten minutes before attacking me and breaking your vow.”

Honerva’s breathing slowed, and she hissed, “The power of the sea has been confined for eons, and now it’s free. It’ll destroy all. Who won in the end?” With her last breath, a blast of magic escaped her fingertips, destroying the barrier that Allura had made.

Immediately the ship started bucking and thrashing in the violent waves.

“Get inside!” Shiro yelled out. “Get in!” He reached out, grabbing Lotor’s arm and dragging him towards the door that would lead them inside, the Prince staring at his mother’s still form.

Lance watched as her body hit the water, gasping in pain as he felt himself getting tossed from the ship and hitting the waves.

…

Lance felt the ocean thrashing against him, even as he sunk down lower and lower. He should have been afraid, he was bleeding and he knew that there were a lot of predators in this area at one point. Maybe they had left when the power of the ocean switch from just hands, to cruel ones, before being unleashed in a way he hadn’t been in eons. It didn’t really matter to him. The witch was dead for good, but he felt dead too.

His eyes flashed open when something hard and smooth touched his face. He reached up, fingers wrapping around what he realized was the gemstone that Honerva had been carrying, the Heart of the Sea turned into something she could hold.

Whatever Keith had done, he had set her up to fail from the beginning, of that, Lance was sure. He had done what he said he’d do and protected the Heart in his own way.

A wave of anger suddenly rolled over him, his hand holding onto the stone so tightly that he could feel one of the edges on it digging into his palm. Instead of allowing himself to sink, Lance spun around and swam back down to the shrine, glaring at the lively violet flames that seemed to be almost mocking him.

Keith laid in front of the flames exactly where Lance had left him. The mer felt a fresh wave of grief overtake him as he wrapped himself tightly around the limp form of his mate. He glared up at the flames, throwing the stone into them. “Screw you! Screw the so-called all powerful ocean! If someone out there was that strong, they’d give him back! He made sure that the witch was gone!” Lance choked on his own words, sobs wracking his body as he let himself grieve again, his voice softening. “Please. Please give him back.” He rested his head on top of Keith’s.

“What would you do?”

Lance’s eyes snapped open, and he looked around. He had to have imagined that. There was nothing around that could talk, and it didn’t even actually sound like a voice. It was more like the thoughts just appeared in his mind. He shook his head and looked down at Keith, running a hand over his cheek. “Anything.”

“Would you split your life in half? Be tied together in a way like non-other? Share the fate he was meant to have alone?”

He had no idea what was going on. It almost felt like the ocean itself was talking to him, but that didn’t make sense at all.

Despite this, Lance found himself immediately answering. “Yes. Yes, I would.” He rested his forehead against Keith’s, breathing in and out.

The Seaflames grew brighter, and Lance realized that they were getting bigger. He knew what happened when fire consumned living things, but he wasn’t afraid. He just shifted, resting his head over the wound on Keith’s chest and closing his eyes, allowing the heat to consume him.

It was strange. As everything went black, he would have sworn that he felt Keith’s heart beating.

…

Shiro was sure that the ship was going to capsize, that they and all of the mercenaries that they had locked away were going to drown in the sea. When he was sure it was over, the oddest thing happened. The clouds parted, the wind and the waves dying down until everything was oddly calm and clear.

“What just happened?” Pidge asked, her eyes wide in horror.

“I don’t know,” Shiro answered, staring down at the ocean. Somehow, everything _felt_ peaceful again, like something had been righted. “We need to go. We need to get back to Altea.”

“What about Lance? And Keith?” Hunk choked out.

Shiro looked at the still ocean sadly. “There’s nothing we can do. The subs, the rovers, they’re all shot. Maybe we can come back, but we need to go. We need to get all of them in a prison.”

It didn’t feel right to leave without Lance, but they all knew that they had to. All of them were in some form of shock, least of all Lotor, who had fallen silent while staring at the bloodstains on the deck. This whole thing was going to be a nightmare to explain.

…

“Lance? Hey, Lance? It’s time to wake up.”

Lance groaned, blinking several times to clear his blurry vision. It took him a moment to realize that there was something pale hovering above him, staring back at him. When his vision finally cleared, he realized that he was staring at a pair of indigo eyes.

“Keith!” Lance lunged up, wrapping his arms around the mer, sobs escaping him for a new reason this time. He was alive. He tried to say something, but couldn’t manage to get anything out.

Keith drew away slightly, pressing his hand to Lance’s cheek. “It’s okay. I’m here. You saved me.”

He whimpered a bit at that, pulling Keith closer again and pressing their lips together. Keith hummed approvingly, kissing him back with just as much passion and vigor. Bless gills, Lance couldn’t imagine being human and needed those airways to breath in moments like this.

Somehow still, Keith seemed to take his breath away.

They twisted together, holding on to one another tightly. When Lance pulled away, his face hovered above Keith’s. He took in the mer’s features, wanting to store them to memory again. “I don’t…understand. How?”

“Look.” Keith nodded downwards. Lance followed his gaze, and flinched at what he saw.

He unravelled his tail from Keith’s, staring at both of them in awe. They both had the same patterns as before, but where Keith had been grey with a glowing purple, he was now white with red glowing accents, and where Lance had been several very similar shades of blue, he was now black with a blue glow.

“What?” Lance breathed out, fingers tracing over his own scales.

Keith shifted a bit closer, fingers reaching out and brushing over the scar of the claw marks that Honerva had left on Lance’s chest. That drew his attention back to Keith, grimacing at the scar that was left from where he had been stabbed and killed.

“There is no specific vow you need to make here,” Keith admitted. “I lied to her about that, tricking her into making the power useless.”

“But why not just use the power?”

“I was worried about everyone else on Voltron.” He looked a little sheepish. “And honestly, this is the first thing I thought of, so I went with it. I had to keep you safe.”

“But you didn’t, the ocean is more important.”

“Fated mates are often called ‘your heart’. You are my heart, I am yours. When I made my vows, I screwed up. I vowed to always protect _my_ heart, not _the_ heart. It was why Kolivan told me I had to stay alone, why I couldn’t be with anyone else. You are my heart. I had to protect you. I vowed I would.” Keith stared at him. “I don’t—it wasn’t just the vow though. I _wanted_ to keep you safe. I’m sorry for what happened, for what I made you watch.”

“I killed her,” Lance admitted. “I—I was so mad.”

Keith rubbed his shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s probably for the best.”

Lance nodded his head, leaning into him again. All he wanted to do was hold him close, explore the world together, see his family again, hell, start a family of their own too. He wanted all of that and more. “You’re not going to ask? I—I said I’d take half your burden, and share my life with you.”

“I know.” Keith motioned around. “I can’t feel things as strongly as before, but that’s probably a good thing. Right? We’re two equal halves. You’ll get used to feeling the ocean eventually.”

Lance nodded his head. He leaned forward, pressing his lips against Keith’s again.

He wanted to do everything, but everything else could wait a little while longer. He just wanted to be with his fated mate.

He  _knew_ that they should probably go back to tell everyone else that they were okay, but Lance honestly didn't care. He wanted to run away from the rest of the world for a while, to explore and just be  _them_. Keith had  _died_ , surely it wasn't too much to ask to be selfish for a little while, right?

"Let's explore. We'll go back to Arus sometime later, check on everyone else, but I just want to be with  _you_. You can show me all your favourite places?" For some reason, Lance  _knew_ that all of their friends were okay. Maybe that was part of sharing his life with Keith, to share his burden, he wasn't sure. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was Keith's answer.

Indigo eyes stared at him, searching as if to see if he was truly okay with that. A small smile slowly spread across his lips, and Keith nodded his head. "Yes." 

Lance beamed excitedly and laughed, pressing their lips together again. 

He had finally found exactly where he needed to be, and he wasn't going to let go ever again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay that was a quick cop-out but it's probably for the best, right?


	15. Epilogue

Allura stared at the video feed before her, showing the runes of Oriande as archeologists very carefully combed over it with interest, several mers from Arus working with them. It wasn’t easy to bring this all together, to prosecute those that had hurt them, to break her engagement to Lotor (who had his own kingdom to worry about), to convincing some mers from Arus thati t was okay to travel with them to Oriande.

This underwater dig was a combination of human ingenuity and mer knowledge of the ocean. Neither could do this without the other. It was the type of thing that she had been striving for.

It was hard to believe that it had been so long since that day. It was almost like a dream to all of the, honestly.

Hunk was trying to hand out sandwiches, but was very clearly distracted by the cute archeologist that was looking over a few samples. Allura thought his little crush on Shay was absolutely adorable, but not when it almost made him fall overboard.

Pidge, who was working on her laptop, grinned and stuck her leg out. Hunk yelped, stumbling a bit and losing his last sandwich overboard. He looked at he and said, “Thanks, Pidge. That one was yours.”

She laughed a little, but before she could say anything else, another voice called out, “Hunk, my buddy, this is oddly dry. What happened?”

The two of them and Allura all froze. They recognized that voice despite not having heard it in quite a long time. Hunk and Pidge both lunged to the side of the boat, Allura not far behind them.

Lance blinked up at them and waved, picking at the sandwich and eating a bit of it.

“Lance!” The cries of all three of them drew the attention of everyone else on the ship, but only a few more knew the significance of it. Shiro, Coran, and Matt were all quickly at the side of the boat, looking down at him.

“You’re alive!” Hunk said, sounding like he was about to burst into tears.

“We thought the worst,” Coran admitted. “It’s good to see you alive and well.”

“Sorry about that,” Lance said, a guilty expression appearing on his face. He swam over towards the back of the boat where the same stairs were as before, resting his elbows on it, still keeping part of the sandwich above water.

“Where have you been?” Shiro asked curiously. “You didn’t come back.”

“Ah, no.” Lance glanced over at something. “A lot happened, you know. I…well…” He blinked several times before grinning and saying. “Hey, hey, tell me I’m pretty.” He threw himself up onto the boat, revealing his black and blue tail that wasn’t sparkling in the sky like it used to, but definitely had a faint blue glow to it.

“W-what happened?” Matt asked, kneeling down beside him and staring in awe.

“It’s a long story of heroism and woe,” Lance said dramatically, flopping backwards. When he realized that he had gotten the sandwich wet, he made a distressed sound. “Damn, I was trying to save that.” Something else seemed to catch his eye behind the ship. “But you were too slow.”

“Sorry?” They all recoiled as Keith appeared beside Lance. They had all known from Lance’s reaction that he had died, it was hard to accept, but there was really no other explanation for it. Yet here he was, alive and well.

“Keith! You’re okay!”

Turning his attention to them, Keith waved a bit and then pulled himself up onto the boat without any hesitation. Matt gaped at his new colouration in awe. It was much more in line with mers that resembled lion-fish, but at the same time, completely unique with vibrant, glowing red and pure whites.  

“Wait a second.” Pidge’s eyes looked between the two mers. “You used to be grey and purple, and now you’re white and red and Lance is black and blue. What…?”

The two glanced at one another before Lance looked at them. “Things happen.”

“That’s it, that’s all we get?” She looked more than a little unimpressed.

“Ignore her,” Matt said, nudging his sister away a bit. “Don’t suppose I could get some pictures and stuff? You know, look you over and all? Are you staying here?”

Lance smiled at them and shook his head. “No. We were just passing through again.”

Hunk looked almost sad at that. “So, you’re leaving against?”

“Yeah, just thought we’d stop and say hi. We’ve got things to do, seas to explore, history to discover, ya know?” Lance brightened immediately. “Hey, you gotta map?” He looked towards Keith for a moment, the other mer staring at him before nodding his head in agreement to whatever silent conversation they were having.

Coran was quick to procure a map for them, pointing out where they were now when Lance asked. He hummed a bit and pointed at a spot. “Right there. There’s a small island there that we’ve bene kind of using as a home base. It’s pretty awesome.”

“So if we check in there from time to time, we might find you?” Hunk clarified.

“We’re actually probably going to be staying there for a while soon,” Keith answered with a small shrug.

“Really? Why’s that?” Shiro looked at them with interest.

A smirk appeared on Lance’s face. “Safe. Lots of sun. Lots of food. Not many predators. It’s a pretty great place for guppies.”

The connotations of his words took a moment to hit. Immediately, all of them started looking over both mers to see if there was anything different about either of them, colouration and glowing aside, but couldn’t see any.

“Wait, are one of you…but…which…?” Matt trailed off.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Lance replied teasingly.

“Well, I’m out before he gets those needles again,” Keith said before sliding back into the ocean. “We need to get going if we’re going to hunt before nighttime.”

“Point,” Lance agreed, following him into the water. He waved at them. “See you guys later!”

“Wait a second!” Pidge yelled at them, but both mers disappeared below the water, individual red and blue glows almost forming purple as they vanished together. “Unbelievable.”

“Who wants to make bets?” Matt asked suddenly. “On which one has the guppy?”

“Matt!” Shiro groaned.

“What? We all know it’s totally Lance.”

“No way, it’s definitely Keith.”

They continued arguing, knowing that it’d be some time before their question was answered, if it was at all.

…

“Think we should have told them?” Lance asked as they swam through the water, looking for fish to take back to the little grotto that they were going to stay at.

“No,” Keith shook his head. “Their faces were hilarious.” He shifted closer to him. “Besides, it’s none of their business.”

That, Lance could agree to. He wrapped his arms around Keith, who returned the embrace just as tightly. He breathed in and out happily, still thankful every single day that his fated mate was still at his side.

In the legend of Oriande, it was said that the witch left two alive, and they stole back the the Heart of the Sea. One gave their life to seal it away and banish the witch from the sea, and the other live on to tell the story so all would know of it.

Lance used to like that story when he was little, when he thought it was just a story. Now though, he couldn’t imagine that. He couldn’t imagine settling on telling a story when he could have Keith in his arms instead.

One gave their life to finally defeat the witch, and the other begged the sea, offering to take on the burden of protecting the Heart, bringing the first back to life. There was no lone survivor, no mourning the loss of their love.

The Heart of the Sea, thankfully, was never seen again.

Instead, love flourished and grew, spreading throughout generations of their family, and one day the power of the ocean would be returned to all mers where it belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND WE'RE DONE. Have fun binging this to the wild people who did that. I hope you enjoyed this. This is really an interesting experiment for me, because I've never posted so many chapters at once.
> 
> So, who do YOU think is the one that's pregnant? Lance who was weird about Hunk's food, or Keith, who Lance was trying to save food for? I left it open on purpose! 
> 
> Here's hoping that season six is amazing and that we're all alive.
> 
> To anyone who may be reading this, please be kind to others so many what happens in the new season tomorrow. Don't make all the negativity even worse! Be mature and don't worry if no 'ships' become canon. I doubt any will until towards the end of the series anyway. Just enjoy and have fun!
> 
> I hope you liked this! See you in the next one! If you wanna talk season 6 later on, just throw me a message! :D


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